#like the show is a MASSIVE improvement on the comics

[incognito-duo]

MUTANT MAYHEM HCs!!

Leonardo

The turtles and Splinter all call him Da Vinci, hated it at first but then grew to love it.

Loves watching Octonauts, and made a video essay about it.

Likes going to Walmart

Watches Vine compilations at 2 am when he can’t sleep

Color codes his candy, for example, only eats all of the red Skittles then the purple ones then green, etc.

Cried over Roblox VC once, and his brother verbally harassed a 5-year bc of it.

After Scumbug got with Splinter, Leo tried to encourage his family to learn the language she spoke. He is the most fluent, but as good as Splinter.

Even though he's a snitch, Leo has blackmail/secrets that are brothers only. (Some things are sibling code fr)

Favorite Dcom is Z-O-M-B-I-E-S, and looks up to Zed.

Loves cheesy Rom-cons, and has a Tubi account just for it.

Donatello

Head of movie nights, mostly watched anime movies but tried to find one the whole family would love.

Has his tent because he owns a bunch of merch, and needed a place to put it.

Simon, from Alvin and the Chipmunks, kinnie. Had a massive childhood crush on Jennet.

Def a Disney Kid, TOH, Molly McGee etc.

Got into Anime, and other fandoms, bc of AMV's.

Fandom wiki user, and a Tumblr user.

Studio Ghibli GEEK!! Made many video essays.

Chapped as hell lips, carries small Vaseline around (Forgets to use it)

Owns a diary

Info dumps and long study sessions a lot

Michelangelo

Only wants bubble tea for the pearls

Had a small wig era... failed, and never did it again. (He only wears wigs in secret)

Has the best handwriting

He could wing a test if he paid attention in class because IMPROV!!!

HAS to sleep near one of his brothers, hence why he has a bunk bed.

Has glow-in-dark stick stars on his wall!!

Number one hypeman when you wanna ask your crush out. Definitely helped Leo with April

Writes in orange glittery pen

Likes to style his mask in bows or fun edges

Over thinks with giving others gifts, decorating, and hosting parties

Raphael

He HATES the dentist

He is actually a big softie and dork (like we all know), so he yaps a lot with April, his brothers, and the people he's REALLY close with

Likes a few musicals because of Mikey, like CryBaby and Ride of the Cyclone

Loves to show off, mostly to impress people

Plays Valorant with Casey

Bullies little kids on Roblox voice chat

Childhood crushes were on Liv from Liv and Maddie, and Cat from Victorious

Likes to munch on waffle cones when bored

He's too loud or too quiet when speaking during certain times without knowing

Owns a journal, and has the most outrageous handwriting

April

Kids still bully her, but a lot have stopped after the events of the movie

She slowly learns how to get over her stage fright

the CUTEST handwriting when taking notes, the aesthetic school notes with the pastel highlighters

Doodles during class, and tends to doodle Leo when working on her newspapers (AprilNardo>>>)

Lowkey hated Casey before they became BFFs

Goes to her apartment roof when she needs to relax, or when bored

Listens to Lofi Girl when studying

Likes to make small, silly comics for the school newspaper

Loves tot bags, or duffel bags!

She is an only child, but loves to hang out with her parents and relatives. Every weekend, she goes to IHop with her family and invites the turtles and Irma sometimes

[hishighnesstheprincess]

"But Prin if you hate the Sonic movies so much why don't you just write a better version of them-" ok I will.

Here are the rules. I have 3 movies and a Knuckles TV show, same characters with no major additions or subtractions, no massive character change in backstory or personality, no lore changes or massive lore additions, may as well throw the Prequill Comic and drone home in there too for good measure, no throwing in major headcanons I have just to make things flow better, working within the limitations the movies have (aka I can't just shove them into mobius for a bit bc that would be hell on the budget), and no making movie 3 just a carbon copy of sa2.

My main goal with this is going to be sticking to the rough structure and themes of the movies (movie 1 being about Sonic not isolating himself and finding a friend in Tom + him ending up in the Wachowski's residence; Prequill Comic being a series of short stories setting up movie 2 without being crucial to understanding movie 2; movie 2 being about Team Sonic coming together, the Master Emerald stuff, Super Sonic, Sonic accepting Tom as a father figure; Drone Home being primarily comedic and showing Team Sonic being somewhat dysfunctional; Knuckles Show being about Knuckles finding a purpose on the earth and developing Wade's character; movie 3 is a lot more up in the air but I imagine it's going to be contrasting sonic and shadow as well as showing their similarities, everything to do with GUN and Shadow's backstory, the general sa2 conclusion of humanity being worth saving, and maybe Team Sonic learning to work together/Sonic learning to be a leader and them all being brothers) and to improve the overall characters, arcs, and world while still sticking to those structures and themes.

Movie 1.

Main characters are Sonic Tom and Eggman.

Roughly the same setup with Sonic accidentally leading the echidna tribe to Longclaw, Sonic being teleported to another planet (which the Knuckles show confirmed wasn't earth btw) and Longclaw and the echidna tribe wiping each other out. Only noticeable change in this section will be Longclaw saying Sonic needs to protect something and that he's the only one who can use it, getting cut off either by the arrow that hurts her or from the echidnas interrupting their conversation when the arrow knocks Longclaw out of the sky. This is here to establish the presence of the Master Emerald as something that Sonic knows vaguely about and his ability to use it to go Super instead of it being something that comes out of nowhere in Movie 2. Eagle-eyed viewers may at this point say this violates my rule about not changing any lore, because in flashbacks in the original version of movie 2 we see an echidna warrior using the Master Emerald, but just hold on a second, I'm gonna get to that in Movie 2 (and the Knuckles Show and Movie 3).

From there we will see Sonic going to the planets we see Xed out on the map he has in movie 2 and discovering the reasons for why they weren't habitable for whatever reason (toxic air, hostile native life, he just couldn't find enough food, etc.) until he winds up on Earth and decides to stay, not risking his luck any more, electing to just stay in a cave in the most peaceful (and boring) town he can find, this of course being Green Hills. Then we get him spying on the town, idolizing Tom (and to a lesser extent Maddie), messing with Carl. We also see Carl's growing paranoia and desperation to catch "The Blue Devil", but also the residents of Green Hills aren't blind in this version and notice weird stuff as well- massive, unexpected windstorms, paths through the forest like someone has been running through it, someone stealing from (insert big grocery and entertainment store here) without ever being caught or leaving a trace behind, stuff like that. Tom jokes that this is the most entertaining part of this town, but he still yearns for being a #bigboycop in the big city (San Francisco if I'm remembering correctly) where Rachel lives. There is also a sequence of Sonic appreciating nature on Earth, but gradually getting bored because of his self-imposed restriction to stay in Green Hills.

And so, things continue, until Sonic has his scheduled breakdown about how empty his life is, the military takes an interest in the town, and through a series of conveniences Tom finds Sonic in his shed and shoots him in the leg with the tranquilizer dart, and Sonic loses the teleporting rings. Things are much the same during Sonic initially persuading Tom, but we include the line "Why did you have bear tranquilizers in the first place?" and Tom looking guilty/doubtful of his actions before trying to defend himself, which a still slightly woozy Sonic just decides to roll with bc a) this is his first real interaction with his hero and b) he's painfully aware that he needs Tom's help right now and doesn't want to jeopardize that. They get out of the house the same way (I am absolutely including the joke about breastfeeding because that's the funniest moment in this entire fucking franchise and the best part of the movies so far imo) but when we get to when Tom kicks Sonic out of the car and tells him to find his own way to San Francisco is the first major change of the movie. Tom hands Sonic a map to San Francisco, and we see Sonic actually go there (because in all his time learning human culture and finding his way around the universe he absolutely learned how to read a map)... and then he goes back to Tom and says he doesn't know how to find San Francisco, and Tom takes pity on him and the road trip from H-E-double-hockey-sticks begins. There is a reason for this change, which I will get into later when I cover the characters arcs in this film.

Things on the road trip don't vary up until we get to the bar fight, and during this scene (which will not include a crappy Quicksilver sequence homage) Sonic is having fun right up until he sees that Tom is actually starting to get hurt, so he then zips around and disables everyone so Tom doesn't get any more hurt. Back in the car, Tom says something about wishing he had his gun, and Sonic excitedly asks if he would have shot "one of the bad guys", at which point Tom says that people don't deserve to get shot just for being in a fight and that he would have just told everyone to leave them alone before fleeing the bar with Sonic. Sonic pouts and says that's not as exciting, at which point Tom retorts "being a police officer isn't supposed to be-" before he cuts himself off, a bit of a contemplative expression on his face. He then deflects the conversation back onto Sonic, and they get onto Sonic's bucket list, full of childish stuff (maybe for emotional impact we could have seen Tom doing some of the items himself while just living his life in Green Hills earlier in the film) and obviously the "make a friend" item. Tom looks sad but doesn't say anything about it, and they go to bed.

The next day while on the road, Tom is visibly tired and still injured from the bar fight, and Sonic is feeling exceptionally guilty. Tom says he shouldn't feel bad because he ended the fight as soon as he could, and Sonic seems to be on the verge of confessing that he could have gone to San Francisco by himself, but Tom accidentally distracts him from that by telling him that he's moving to San Francisco which Sonic gets angry about. Just as they're really getting into it Eggman attacks the car. During the fight Tom yells something about "not signing up for multiple near-death experiences", and also Sonic has to take control of the car for a lot of it, during which time he navigates using a map, which Tom sees. The fight ends the same, but just as Tom is about to question Sonic on how he can read the map, they notice the bomb stuck to Tom which both of them freak out about, but Sonic freaks out considerably harder than Tom expected him to and starts emitting blue sparks similar to his initial breakdown in the baseball field (this is because of his Longclaw trauma, which the audience is made aware of when Sonic says something like "not again, I can't be responsible for something like this again" or something along those lines), and then Sonic gets the bomb on his glove, says something about how it's better he dies than someone else he cares about, and then gets blown up. There is one other change here: the bomb gets stuck to Sonic's shoe, and his leg is injured.

Tom is understandably fucking worried about Sonic's minor breakdown and how hurt he is, but quickly realizes Sonic is alive and gets him to Rachel's house. All the human interactions go basically the same, with added Tom and Maddie interaction where he says he's furious that Sonic obviously lied to him about not being able to read the map and has potentially ruined his life, and Maddie gently reminding him that Sonic's a kid who just almost sacrificed his life to make sure Tom wouldn't get hurt. When Sonic wakes up he and Tom have a fight about the Everything™, with Tom being understandably angry that Sonic lied to him and put him in danger and Sonic yelling about how Tom wants to have a more exciting life without valuing the peace he already has. It's at this point that he yells at Tom about his traumatic backstory and why he was in Green Hills for years in the first place, at which point Tom softens and says that he's sorry, but he isn't going to help Sonic anymore. However, there's a genuine problem at this point. Sonic's leg is injured so he really can't run fast enough to just go up the side of the building the rings are on, and after some needling from Maddie (+ Rachel begging them all to get the fuck out of her house for some comedic levity) Tom agrees to smuggle Sonic up the building.

At the top of the building, Sonic says goodbye to Tom and Maddie and genuinely apologizes to Tom, saying that he would try to make up for it but he's gonna have to go live on a mushroom planet now (btw there would be a scene earlier in the film where Sonic complains about how boring + dangerous the mushroom planet is) which leads to Tom experiencing a moment of doubt as to whether or not Sonic really has to leave. Of course, at that moment Eggman shows up, and Sonic, once again freaking out over the possibility of getting Tom and Maddie killed, gets them out of the fight in the same way he does in the original movie, and starts using his powers to run again, despite the fact that he's making his leg injury worse while doing so. Like the original film, Sonic ends up in Green Hill, and Tom gets in-between him and Eggman even when both Sonic and Eggman tell him to get out of the way. It's at this point that Eggman taunts Tom over his general inability to fight like the two of them can, and says that Tom will never amount to anything more than a busybody in a small town where no one will ever need him to save them, and Tom retorts that he's fine with just saving Sonic, who he then calls a friend. Queue the third-act friendship power up and Eggman's defeat.

After all that, Sonic collapses due to the strain on his leg and Tom and Maddie say he can stay with them "until he finds a new home", which Sonic agrees to. When the GUN Commander swings by, he offers Tom whatever he wants, and Tom says he's happy with just staying in Green Hills "with my family", at which point the GUN Commander says that he meant Tom could get whatever he wants at Olive Garden (yes I find those jokes funny, sue me). The film ends with Tom and Maddie showing Sonic to his new home in their house, but when Tom says something like "now you can stay safe in an actual house now" Sonic will mumble "stay..." and glance out the window, looking a mix of genuinely happy and unsure.

That's the entire plot of this movie, bar the Tails post-credits sequence (I would personally change that to having it just be Tails noticing the massive energy surge from Sonic's breakdown earlier in the film/his powerup later, but whatevs).

Now for the character arc explanation that I promised, the idea is that Tom's and Sonic's goals in this film are relatively morally pure but get twisted because of their conflicting desires. Tom wants to be a cop who does more "important" things but fails to consider how he's already helping people in Green Hills and how he probably should not want to have a more exciting lifestyle when police officers, should, ideally, prevent bad things from happening to people and not just hunt down bad people (with heavy air quotes around the idea of crime making someone a bad person obviously). Sonic has two conflicting desires, that being wanting to keep himself/others safe by isolating himself vs. his natural desire to explore and find fun things to do. Tom wants to fulfill his wishes just by going to San Francisco where there is more crime for him to solve, and Sonic tries to satisfy his wishes by lying to Tom just to have a few days of genuine fun before isolating himself further. Both of them realize that their goals and methods of achieving those goals are flawed, and Tom completes his arc by realizing he can protect Sonic as best he can. Sonic's arc is not complete yet, but he's finished the first stage of it by making a genuine friend and no longer isolating himself.

Some other notes: during the road trip Sonic is going to spend a lot of time looking out the window and marveling at the changing scenery. Despite it all, America is quite beautiful, and I think this should be used to establish that Sonic likes exploring and experiencing nature and seeing people interact.

I don't think my version of the film is perfect. Obviously Tom is still a cop at the end of the movie and that is broadly portrayed as a morally neutral thing, but I couldn't figure out a way to put in a dissection of the politics of being a police officer in America without massively derailing the plot, so the compromise was to show that cops definitely shouldn't aim to be the """"""heroes"""""" and should just be there to actually serve and protect. Additionally, Maddie still isn't much of a character in this, she's kind of just there to be Tom's nice wife who pokes him and Sonic in the right direction. There's also some confusion with Sonic's idolization of Tom and him wanting to have "exciting" adventures vs. his trauma over the first real act of violence he was a victim of in his life, Longclaw's death, but I digress. If there are many other major issues anyone noticed feel free to put them in the notes.

Prequill Comic.

5 stories, focusing on Sonic, Stone, Knuckles, Tails, and Eggman, in that order.

I will keep Sonic's story mostly unchanged, with the caveat that it's going to be obvious that he's going stir-crazy not just because he wants adventure, but also because he's getting bored just being in Green Hills, especially with only Tom, Maddie, and Ozzy for company. This will contribute to his arc in movie 2 of getting friends/brothers while still not having the problem of Sonic's love for exploration be solved fully in the second movie.

Stone's story is unchanged I genuinely love it so much. Maybe make it a bit clearer how genuinely gay he is for Eggman.

Knuckles story I will change up a bit. I'll establish just how long he's been looking for Sonic and make it so that he also doesn't know why Sonic was important to Longclaw.

For Tails, I'm gonna take the opportunity to world build a bit. Make it canon that every "Zone" in the games translates to a planet in this universe, and have it be that Sonic's energy signature is both unique and extremely powerful, even more so than whatever is trailing Tails in the comic (which is Knuckles, who canonically has similar powers to Sonic in that his quills can serve as energy sources for other things). Also, include a mention of Chaos Emeralds in the world that Tails' ring-teleports to that he says has leftover Chaos Energy in it. Nothing big, just a few casual mentions.

For Eggman, he's also gonna be basically just the same. Maybe a bit more about how Sonic's quill is unique as an energy source in that it has potentially infinite energy if harnessed right, which Eggman does not yet know how to do.

Movie 2.

Main characters are Sonic, Eggman, Tails, and Knuckles. I think Movie 2 is vastly better than Movie 1 so there won't be as many changes but there will still be some.

The opening sequence with Eggman accidentally summoning scavengers + Knuckles will be kept the same. Sonic's escapades in San Francisco and Tom confronting him about it are also mostly the same, but Sonic expresses a desire to get out of Green Hills, at which point Tom reminds him that GUN are probably looking for an excuse to hunt him down and that it's too dangerous. When Tom and Maddie leave for Hawaii, Sonic still throws a massive party, but he still looks incredibly bored (maybe he says something about throwing the same party for himself every time Maddie and Tom are away from the house for a significant period of time). When he turns the tv on instead of showing a funny lil Ben Schwartz meta joke reference thing, it's instead going to be a newscaster following a crime being actively committed in (insert big American city here) and Sonic appears visibly frustrated but decides to stay in Green Hill.

When Eggman arrives, he's going to make a jab about the Wachowskis having a pet hedgehog as well as a pet dog. The first confrontation will play out basically the exact same, but I'm adding a line where Knuckles says, "Don't lie to me, I know she must have had a reason for keeping you safe when she killed so many others!" I don't believe this counts as a massive lore change because Knuckles in movie 2 already has a line about his tribe dying at the hands of Longclaw, so it's not a stretch to imagine that they had fatal encounters before she took Sonic in. When Tails rescues Sonic, he doesn't introduce himself during the car chase and instead focuses on how cool it is to meet Sonic. This will be our first hint towards Tails' self-esteem issues. I will also be changing things slightly to have Sonic be the one to give Tails' nickname to him. When Tails drives the car off the cliff and lifts Sonic into the air to get away from Knuckles, that's going to be the first time Sonic calls him Tails, in a clearly approving way.

Btw the scenes with Tom and Maddie in Hawaii will be mostly unchanged aside from one bit. When Tom says he wishes Sonic had friends, Maddie will say, "He already has you," and Tom will respond with, "He has only me. It wouldn't be enough for a normal kid, and Sonic is.... he wants to get out there and see this world, but I don't know how to let him do that if he's going to put himself and others in danger. And then there's the government as well," at which point Maddie says he's worrying too much and that they haven't seen the government since the end of the first movie, which Tom reluctantly agrees to (this will lead into a conflict in movie 3). Also the Eggman, Stone, and Knuckles scenes will be mostly unchanged, but again I will be adding a bit where Eggman asks Knuckles about why he hates Sonic, at which point Knuckles will tell him about the beef between the echidna tribe and the owls, but portraying the owls as the villains and the echidna tribe as just trying to protect themselves and the Master Emerald, which Knuckles will describe as being part of his heritage or something to that affect. This will later contrast with the story of the war that Sonic will tell Tails, where echidna tribe were invading conquerors, and the owls were just trying to stop them (because I never understood in the movie why Tails is the one to explain the lore of the echidna tribe and the owls, when Sonic is the one who actually experienced at least some of it). This is because I think the original movie tragically misses out on the idea that neither Sonic nor Knuckles know what really happened with the echidnas and the owls (even if the lore of the series that we see in Tails' Prequill Comic section as well as what we see of the echidna tribe in the movie 1 intro and movie 2 when Knuckles is reminiscing about his dad do imply that the echidnas were the aggressors).

During the section in Siberia, I'm going to change it to be that Sonic and Tails need to get information about the exact location of the owl temple out of the locals (because I just do not buy that humans would be a threat to Tails let alone Sonic), which is where the misunderstanding via Tails' faulty translation device comes in. Somehow the natives become hostile to them, at which point they start calling Tails a freak, and he begins to freak out. Sonic notices and gets in front of him, defending him, at which point Tails gets enough confidence to try translating again, and the machine gets enough words right this time for the locals to point them in the direction of the mountain. When they're heading up the mountain, Sonic asks Tails about him freaking out back in the bar, at which point Tails tells Sonic his backstory of being bullied for his twin tails, making him an outcast even among Mobians. Sonic would be confused and say that his twin tails make him able to fly, which is cool, and generally reassure Tails that Sonic thinks he's awesome because of his differences. Tails would be happy that Sonic thinks he's cool, but still look somewhat unsure. At this point, Tom will also text Sonic asking if he's fine and not getting up to any trouble, and Sonic will lie and say he's still at their house (paralleling when Sonic lied in movie 1).

When they get to the owl temple, Sonic gives his side of the echidna-owl conflict, but Tails appears somewhat confused and says, "But that's not what.... never mind," but when Sonic presses him on it he says that's not what he was told in school, and what Tails was taught was that the echidna-owl tribe got into a war over who should have access to the Master Emerald and wiped each other out over it, with Longclaw being one of their most powerful warriors who just withdrew from the war suddenly, leading to the rest of the owl tribe being wiped out without her. I might be stretching my rule of "no massive lore changes" here but the movies themselves do not give us a lot to go off of when it comes to what actually happened because every single active player in that story is long dead by the time we get to actually talking about it. What Tails contributes to this conversation is telling Sonic about how the Master Emerald can give the "ultimate power" to whoever can use it, and the Chaos Emeralds that forged it. Sonic then connects this to Longclaw telling him in the first movie that he has to protect something and that he's the only one who can use it, but is still confused as to what she means because Tails told him that echidna warriors in the past have used it, so Sonic doesn't know wtf she meant when she said that only he can use it properly. When they use the map to get the compass, Knuckles and Eggman show up, and they have the same fight, with Tails ending up knocked out, Eggman getting the compass, and Sonic and Knuckles get into their confrontation on the snowy cliff, with Knuckles yelling, "Longclaw killed my people and my father" and Sonic yelling, "your tribe killed my mom" showing their differing perspectives on the echidna-owl conflict. When Tails gets knocked out and Sonic decides to protect him instead of going after the compass, Knuckles looks doubtful about leaving them both behind.

Queue awkward wedding scene (I personally cannot watch this scene but only because I get intense second-hand embarrassment from media, so I will be keeping it in at my own expense). Also queue the GUN reveal, and Tom, Sonic, and Tails getting captured. The main difference in this section is that Sonic and Tom will talk while captured, and Sonic will apologize for lying to Tom again, and Tom will say, "I'm sorry you felt like you had to lie to me." He'll also say he's proud of Sonic for prioritizing protecting Tails over anything else. Tails will also wake up, and he'll apologize to Sonic for messing up, saying he's useless, etc. Sonic will reassure him that Tails was helpful and that without him Sonic would have probably gotten himself killed, and Sonic will say that he still needs Tails to prevent Eggman and Knuckles from getting the Master Emerald. When Maddie frees them, Sonic and Tails go off by themselves (after filling Tom and Maddie in on everything that has happened to them) after stealing the wedding plane, and Tom and Maddie try to get GUN on their side. Btw Rachel and Randall's plot is gonna go the same, because apparently, they're both going to be in the third movie so I can't just have Rachel kick him in the balls and be done with him.

The temple will go the same, with Knuckles + Eggman and Sonic + Tails all trying to get to the center of the temple at the same time and arriving at the same time. At this point Sonic and Tails fight Knuckles, while Eggman spectates and starts slowly making his way to the Master Emerald. With Tails' help, Sonic gets close to actually beating Knuckles, before he notices Eggman grabbing the Master Emerald and yells at Knuckles to turn around. Eggman gets the Master Emerald, Knuckles realizes he's been betrayed, and after Eggman teleports away the temple falls apart, with Sonic and Knuckles getting trapped under the water. Sonic helps Knuckles get out of the water, and Tails persuades Knuckles to go back in to get Sonic to safety, after which Tails flies all three of them to the nearby island. From there Sonic and Knuckles have their talk on the beach, come to the mutual agreement that they don't have to continue the conflict of their ancestors (biological in Knuckles' case and foster in Sonic's case) and they all agree to work together to stop Eggman.

Final fight time! Eggman goes to Green Hills to pick up Stone and also destroy the home Sonic has made for himself with the Wachowskis, and Team Sonic (gonna use that from now on to refer to Sonic + Knuckles + Tails without typing out all of their names individually) teleport there using one of Tails' rings. The fight goes broadly the same, but at one point Eggman mentions that the power of the Master Emerald is getting harder to control, and Knuckles says that even the best echidna warriors couldn't use it for very long. Things during the fight go basically the same, with Knuckles and Tails knocking the Master Emerald out of Eggman and Sonic grabbing it on the ground and running away with it. Tom and Maddie save Sonic before their car gets blown off the road, and Eggman has them trapped and is about to kill them. Sonic gets his Super Sonic power up and defeats Eggman pretty easily, but afterwards Knuckles freaks out over Sonic using the Master Emerald as well and is surprised when Sonic gives up that power easily. Knuckles explains at that point that even the best echidna warriors could only use the power for a brief amount of time, and that anyone who used it for too long will eventually get overloaded by the power and die, or get corrupted somehow and start using it for evil (for clarification: it's not inherently evil just an extremely powerful source of energy and considering that it can literally grant wishes, even the slightest amount of bad intentions in its users can result in catastrophe, which is why the owls hid it instead of using it themselves). He asks Sonic how he was able to use it so well and give it up easily, and Sonic says he doesn't really know, but he didn't feel like it was hard to handle at all.

From there we get Sonic accepting Tom as his father figure, Team Sonic officially forming to protect the Master Emerald, and all that. When Knuckles reforms the Master Emerald, he says that it's lost a lot of its power so it shouldn't be capable of letting anyone go Super anymore, but that they should still keep it safe. At the end of the movie, Sonic will be happy about having new friends/brothers, but still feel somewhat dissatisfied with his life in Green Hills, even if GUN's interference at the wedding has made both Tom and Maddie want to keep the three Mobians in Green Hills for their own safety, which Sonic reluctantly accepts once again. Post-credits scene with Shadow will be unchanged.

A lot of the lore stuff I put in there is just gonna be used to explain why the Master Emerald is not a magical "solve everything" button that Team Sonic can use for any and all physical threats, as well as trying to make the echidna-owl conflict less one-sided by introducing questions like, "Why did Longclaw leave the war and take Sonic? Even if the echidnas were the initial aggressors in the conflict, was it right for them to be wiped out?" and just generally making it clear that it was a terrible thing that unfortunately got passed down to Knuckles and Sonic, which they eventually move on from after realizing they shouldn't be tied down by the mistakes their predecessors made.

I also changed things to give Tails more screentime, and developed his and Sonic's relationship a bit more, because I felt like in the original movie Tails was tragically overshadowed by Knuckles (who later got a TV show where he was overshadowed by his own human sidekick probably due to a lack of budget), and made it so that Tom and Maddie have an actual reason to want to keep Team Sonic exclusively in Green Hills for their safety, and also continuing the instances of Sonic lying to Tom. Those last two things are going to have a payoff in the third movie >:)

Drone Home.

Main characters are Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Unit.

Drone Home is mostly the same, but with extra emphasis on Knuckles going ahead regardless of what Sonic wants them to do as a Team, and Sonic's reliance on Tails' plans to get out of trouble after getting himself into it.

Knuckles TV Show.

Main characters are Knuckles and Wade.

Honestly, I think the Knuckles show could be vastly improved just by having more focus be on the titular character. I will be changing the overall theme of the show, just because I feel like the topic of finding a home and purpose in other people is already decently well covered in movie 1 and 2. Instead, I will be changing it into a bit of an exploration of Knuckles' character and how to find a purpose in life after already achieving what you thought would be the culmination of your life's work.

Basic setup will still be the same, Knuckles being extremely overprotective of the Master Emerald and hostile towards the people just trying to work on the house and getting grounded by Maddie as a result. That will all happen in episode 1, but when Pachamac shows up he tells Knuckles that he has to "continue the legacy of the tribe" and train another warrior. Pachamac will also say that legacy can only be protected with violence. Through comedic circumstances that are actually well-written this time, Knuckles comes to the conclusion that he must train Wade in becoming a warrior at bowling. The episode ends with him getting captured.

Episode 2 is broadly the same, but with the plot point that the two ex-GUN agents are using Knuckles' own quills to power the machine that is keeping him contained (because otherwise he could just break out easily using his power), but at the end of the episode when Wade is about to lose to the female ex-GUN agent (I cannot be bothered to remember their fucking names I'm sorry) the power of the quill fails, so Knuckles breaks out and saves Wade before fleeing the mansion. The ex-GUN agents were able to get a decent number of quills from Knuckles before his escape, so that's going to power their weapons for the rest of the series.

In episode 3, I'm removing the stuff about Wade's mom learning Krav Maga in the IOF and just keeping it strictly about Jewish religious practices. I'm also removing the joke where Wade's mom learns about Knuckles' tribe being wiped out and goes "oh so he's basically Jewish" because that just puts a bad taste in my mouth. This may not be my place as a gentile person, but equating Judaism with being genocided isn't a joke I'm comfortable with. This episode will still cover the Shabbat Dinner, because I think including Jewish representation is still important regardless of real-world events currently happening. I'll also be changing Wade's sister to make her less... actually abusive towards Wade, and while she'll still be just as obnoxious in my ideal version of this show the writing will be actually funny, so it won't be a problem. At the end of the episode, we get the fight where Knuckles and Wade's mom protect the candle, and at the end of it Wade's mom thanks Knuckles for protecting the candle and their Jewish heritage. Knuckles says that he should have finished off their attackers, and she says that protecting the candle is more important than anything else (is the symbolism and theme obvious enough yet). Also, at the end of the episode I'm just going to insert a scene of Sonic and Tails covering for Knuckles to Tom and Maddie.

Episode 4. I'm gonna have Wade's bounty hunter ex-friend capture both Wade and Knuckles, planning on handing both of them over to GUN/the government, and Knuckles tells Wade about all his adventures. I guess I should include the low-budget rock opera musical, we can have it be that Wade is hallucinating from getting electrocuted by the cage, so he imagines it as being the musical. Also, they can't just magically escape because Knuckles got electrocuted repeatedly so he just doesn't have the strength after that and also the massive amount of fighting he's done in the past few days. Wade asks why that is when Sonic never seems to run out of energy no matter how much he uses, and Knuckles says that Sonic is uniquely powerful among Mobians, even though they don't know why yet, or if there even is a proper reason why he has so much energy. Eventually Wade figures out a way to trick his ex-friend into getting close to the cage, at which point Wade grabs him and Knuckles knocks him out, and they escape the cage before heading to Reno.

Episodes 5 and 6 blur together in my head, but I'm gonna say that they're broadly the same except Knuckles helps Wade in the tournament (because in the beginning of the show they made a big deal out of it being a doubles tournament which is why Wade's ex-friend wanted to find someone better than Wade to partner up with but when they get there it's just a singles tournament and oh my god this show is so poorly written but I digress) and when they expect to go up against their second-to-last opponents (before facing Wade's dad) they instead find the ex-GUN agents. During their fight Knuckles throws a few bowling balls which end up scoring Wade and Knuckles enough points to move them on to the next round. When they defeat the ex-GUN agents Wade questions how they knew they were here, and then Knuckles and Wade realize that Wade's father sold them out to GUN. They move onto the bowling tournament final, where Wade's dad's bowling tournament partner turns out to be the guy giving the ex-GUN agents weapons. He and Knuckles fight while Wade and his dad do the bowling tournament stuff. After both of them win their respective fights, Wade comments that he should have maybe treasured the family he already had instead of disregarding them to look for his dad, and Knuckles realizes he doesn't have to be a warrior anymore, he just have to protect his family and his inheritance. They have the sitcom high-five, and Knuckles goes back home.... only to be greeted by a furious Maddie and Sonic and Tails sheepishly saying they failed to cover for him.

I don't think I did a very good job with this one aside from just making the plot more logical and trying to make the theme about protecting your inheritance being more important than attacking those who you think will hurt you. The stuff with Pachamac was kept deliberately vague because the movies might at some point make a loose adaptation of sa1, but I wanted Pachamac's characterization to be closer to his game counterpart and have it be more that Knuckles was misinterpreting his advice instead of just having this chieftan warlord tell Knuckles he has to help a random guy in a bowling tournament. Also, I removed the instance of Wade getting superpowers

Movie 3.

This one I'm just gonna have to guess that the main characters are Team Sonic, Eggman, Shadow, prooooobably Tom, and Gerald, with GUN initially being friendly to our heroes then turning out to be the main antagonistic force.

We start with Shadow waking up on Prison Island (why now of all times will be explained later) and breaking out. For a few weeks (during which the events of the Knuckles series take place) GUN tries to keep everything hush-hush but when it becomes clear to them that they just can't take Shadow out without help. It's at this point that they go to the Wachowski household, blackmailing them using the property damage Knuckles caused in his TV show and Sonic's crime-stopping adventures in the very beginning of movie 2 to get them to stop Shadow for him. This is secretly a plan from GUN to get Team Sonic and Shadow to wipe each other out (they have a backup plan to deal with Shadow if it comes to it), so they don't tell Team Sonic about Shadow's combat prowess and his ability to teleport.

Team Sonic gets wiped by Shadow in Tokyo, after which they ask GUN why Shadow is seemingly attacking random places, at which point the GUN Commander tells them that he's attacking GUN facilities all over the world which contain the Chaos Emeralds. Sonic furiously asks why they weren't told about this initially, and GUN says that they didn't know that Shadow could use them in combat (for his chaos powers like teleportation and such). Team Sonic is extremely skeptical of this claim but ultimately accepts it. They then go to England (ew) where GUN says they have another facility with a Chaos Emerald. Tails looks into GUN's files and sees that they've erased a lot of their own files recently, but then Shadow attacks, and while it is less one-sided Shadow still wins, but during the fight he says something about being imprisoned by GUN, which confuses Sonic. Team Sonic question a random GUN agent (Krysten Ritter's character) about Shadow, and she accidentally lets slip that Shadow was imprisoned on Prison Island for 50 years.

It's at this point that Team Sonic fully don't trust GUN, and they go to Eggman because they figure that if Eggman was previously employed by the military/government, he may have more knowledge of what is going on than they do. They trade Sonic's quill for his help with taking down GUN/Shadow, and Eggman manages to guide them all to another GUN facility, this one not on any of the maps GUN gave them to show where all the Chaos Emeralds were being kept. It's at this point that they find some evidence of what happened on the ARK, and Eggman, exploring the facility by himself, finds Gerald. Gerald explains GUN's intentions of wiping out

Because Team Sonic has gone sort of AWOL, GUN takes Tom as a sort-of hostage and keeps him at another facility in (insert big city here. Personally, I'm hoping we get some South American representation if this really is a globe-trotting adventure). This is the next facility Shadow attacks, and because Team Sonic is busy getting exposition-dumped by Gerald/whatever physical files they find in the abandoned facility, Tom ends up getting injured in the fight and almost dying. Sonic is furious at this, and goes along with GUN when Shadow attacks the next facility (for anyone keeping track Shadow has now attacked four facilities and has five Chaos Emeralds, the fifth one being from Prison Island which he nabbed on his way out), which results in Tails and Knuckles almost getting killed... from a GUN soldier firing on all four Mobians while they were in the same area.

This results in Team Sonic directly confronting the GUN Commander (they've separated from Eggman and Gerald at this point, there was a betrayal which they all expected) with all they've learned, at which point they learn everything about the ARK, Shadow, Gerald, and Maria. Sonic is furious and says that he won't fight Shadow anymore, but he is told by the GUN Commander that Shadow aims to destroy the entire world (no one knows about Maria's wish yet, and that whole thing with Gerald which I will be changing from its sa2 version so just hold on until then).

Meanwhile, Gerald is slowly drip feeding Eggman information, saying that they can rule the world together after Shadow brings them all the Emeralds. He skirts around the topic of Maria, which Eggman notices. Eggman than inquires about the ARK, but everyone (Eggman and Team Sonic and GUN) get distracted by Shadow attacking yet another facility, aiming to get another Chaos Emerald (let's have this one be in Africa). Team Sonic does go to try and stop Shadow again, but this time Sonic attempts to reason with Shadow, drawing parallels between Shadow's loss of Maria and his own loss of Longclaw. Shadow is furious at this and says they're nothing alike because Maria died in his arms, and Sonic retorts that he was directly responsible for leading the echidna tribe to Longclaw, whereas Maria's death was definitely not Shadow's fault (so they both lost loved ones but are carrying around two different types of survivor's guilt). Shadow once again says that he doesn't know what he's talking about, but seems a little more hesitant this time. The GUN Commander sees Sonic trying to talk it out with Shadow, and at this point fully betrays Team Sonic, trying to kill all of them. Shadow gets the sixth Chaos Emerald and dips, but confuses Sonic by saying "we have them all now" and "when we're done, there won't be anything left". Team Sonic gtfo of there, and they quickly figure out that Shadow has an ally who already has the last Chaos Emerald, who they then realize is Gerald.

It's at this point that Gerald reveals his true intentions to Eggman. After both he and Shadow witnessed Maria's death (and her final words were "Shadow, I beg of you, please do it for me..." but she crucially DOES NOT FINISH SAYING HER WISH BEFORE DYING. I know this will be a massively controversial change but I'll get back to it later), Gerald assumed she wanted humanity dead and persuaded Shadow that that was what she wanted before they were both captured by GUN, Shadow put into his cryosleep coma and Gerald forced to help GUN become an overwhelmingly powerful military force with branches all over the world. During this time Gerald secretly worked on his ARK Project, building a weapon into it that would require a massive power source, which he designed from his research on the owl temple on Siberia. While Gerald never found the Master Emerald temple he resigned himself to just waiting until someone else found the Master Emerald, which happened 50 years later. When someone did find the Master Emerald Gerald immediately woke Shadow up (how he accomplished all of this.... ig it's just because he's a genius who can manipulate GUN into letting him do whatever he wants and he had 50 years to put all this into place) and told him to go find the Chaos Emeralds.

It's at this point that Eggman asks where the weapon is, where the ARK is, and where the last Chaos Emerald is. Gerald says they're all in one place- the very facility both of them are standing in- and when Shadow arrives, the very last part of Gerald's plan activates. The ARK is the facility they're all in, and Gerald has the last Chaos Emerald. With all of the Chaos Emeralds gathered in the same space, the ARK is capable of powering itself again, detaching itself from the planet and lifting into the outer atmosphere, orbiting the Earth. Gerald begins charging the Eclipse Cannon with the Chaos Emeralds.

GUN at this point just plans to raid the facility mere hours before it fires and kill Gerald and Shadow, and has put Team Sonic on house arrest. Sonic goes to see Tom, and says that he's not going to lie to himself or Tom anymore- he plans on stopping GUN and Shadow and Gerald, and that no matter what he does he's still going to be threatened by people like the GUN Commander and Eggman, so he'll just live as true to himself as he possibly can. He thanks Tom for being his dad but says, "every kid has to grow up someday," and Tom reluctantly agrees, asking Sonic to keep himself as safe as possible. Krysten Ritter's character sneaks a ring to Team Sonic and they use it to teleport into the ARK, ready for the final confrontation.

Knuckles and Tails try to deal with the hordes of machines Gerald has on the ARK, while Sonic goes directly to Shadow, asking why he's just going along with what Gerald wants, and asking if this is the fate Maria would want for the world and for him. After a fight in which Sonic and Shadow tie (something something they're equals now something something rivalry), Sonic tells Shadow that he's never going to give up on this world or on his family, and Shadow finally admits himself that Maria probably wouldn't have wanted him to do this, and goes with Sonic to stop Gerald. At this point Eggman is already working with Knuckles and Tails to get to the center of the ARK, and with Sonic and Shadow's help they get there, with Tails and Eggman disabling the Eclipse Cannon (during all this GUN is being generally unhelpful and trying to kill everyone). At this point Gerald gets truly desperate and goes straight for the kill switch, causing the ARK to start hurtling towards the earth. Sonic and Shadow both realize what they've got to do, and they use the Chaos Emeralds to go Super, using Chaos Control to teleport the ARK and stop it from crashing down to Earth. Shadow falls out of the sky, but Sonic, having flashbacks to Longclaw falling out of the sky and Tom getting hurt, refuses to let him go, and it's at this point that they both get rescued by Tails and Knuckles. Gerald, refusing to accept his loss, dies fighting GUN, and Eggman escapes. Tails forces GUN to back down by threatening to reveal the truth about what happened on the ARK, and Krysten Ritter's character forces the GUN Commander to step down and takes control of GUN herself. She promises to leave the Mobians alone from now on (unless they really do need their help dealing with any kind of extraterrestrial threat) and says they'll all be forgiven for all their crimes, including Shadow.

The movie ends with Sonic offering Shadow a place in their family, which Shadow rejects because he wants to find his own path, and to see what Maria loved about the planet. He goes his own way. The Wachowskis slowly recover from everything that's happened over the course of the movie, but when Tom is fully recovered he pulls Sonic aside and says he knows that Sonic wants to leave Green Hills and explore the universe. Tom is very clearly sad about this but willing to let Sonic go (and potentially Tails and Knuckles if they want to go), even if there is still the possibility of Sonic being attacked by rogue GUN agents or Eggman. Sonic hugs him and says he'll visit often and bring back lots of souvenirs. The first place Sonic ends up going to once he leaves Green Hills is his old house where he and Longclaw used to live, and he says goodbye to her as well, promising to keep her and everyone else he's ever met in his heart. Then he sets off to an unknown planet in search of new adventures. In my ideal version of movie 3 the post-credit scene would be setting up a CD adaptation, with either Amy Rose or Metal Sonic being shown (with Eggman creating Metal Sonic using the quill he got from Sonic earlier in this movie).

This movie is intended to be the end of a trilogy in my version, and whatever the next movie is should start fresh with new themes. But the throughline for the trilogy is not letting yourself be ruled by the past, whether that be Gerald directly trying to manipulate Shadow into doing what he wants using Maria's memory or Sonic and Knuckles assuming that they have to fight just because their ancestors fought or even Sonic just going along with what Tom and Maddie want him to do to keep himself safe instead of finding his own path in life. The other main part of the trilogy is Sonic growing up, I imagine there wouldn't be any major character changes for him after the third movie.

Apparently, there's talks of a Shadow TV Show and Movie 4 being in development but I'm not even going to try and write a version of that when we haven't even seen movie 3 yet.

Conclusion

I am way too fucking tired to write out a proper conclusion after all that shit, and yet I feel that I have to write it anyways.

Truth be told, I still don't think my version of this universe would fix a lot of the fundamental problems I think it has. There are a lot of bits that are clunky, heavy-handed, rely on the audience just not thinking too hard about the logistics of everything that is happening (especially in movie 3), and many more problems that I can think of even as the person who created it. I still, in general, don't approve of it being a live-action adaptation, I don't like the celebrity casting, and I don't like movie Sonic's personality in general or how he's voiced (sorry Ben Schwartz, I like you in other stuff just not this), and the lack of female characters would still be a pretty big problem! But I do genuinely think that even with these limitations, the movies could have been so much better than what they are. I hope my version shows that, and fixes at least some of their problems.

[milkymooshi]

I think Gotham as a whole could’ve been massively improved upon if they threw out like half their subplots and expanded on the dynamics with Oswald, Ed, and Jim. And by that I mean that I think it would’ve been a more entertaining show if Oswald was playing both Jim and Ed to get what he wanted, Jim and Ed fight each other abt it thru increasingly comically and borderline cartoonish schemes and plans, and it all ends with them as a poly thruple. I’m just saying.

[kingdomoftyto]

I've started and deleted three drafts now trying to get my thoughts into a coherent recommendation, but there's just so much.

Let's start with the basics: You should read the graphic novel if you're a fan of the original show. You just should. It's new content of your old faves, and I'm telling you now that the art and writing are great and that you should give it a shot based on that alone.

But as for exactly why I'm losing my mind over it this much...?

It... feels like watching the show. But a version of the show unafraid to explore its own worldbuilding. A version of the show where continuity and character growth matter. A version of the show without jokes written by people far too old to understand mid-2000s teens.

And it is actually, honest-to-goodness funny. I went in fully braced for a badly shoehorned "fruit loop" one-liner, and instead I got incredible deadpan asides like this:

The art, too, manages to perfectly ride the line of looking enough like the original style to be convincing, but improving on the expressiveness of the characters' faces and actions to elevate it to something arguably better than the show:

(Like, I'm being so serious when I say the fight scenes are among the best I have ever seen in comic form. I'm the kind of person who tends to go for anime over manga because the fights are harder for me to follow in little sequential snapshots, but I can tell exactly what's happening in these battles AND they still look super cinematic and cool.)

And the story. Man, the STORY.

I won't spoil any of the plot here, but it's... really good. A little winding and goofy toward the beginning, but once things get serious, it really grabs you and refuses to let go til it's done. (Much like the best episodes of the show! Funny how that works.) It has a satisfying conclusion, but it also leaves a massive door open to continue telling more stories in the setting.

And I want more stories in this universe. The threads being dangled here might be even more enticing than those left by the original show. There is potential here for an INCREDIBLE series of comics.

We just have to prove how badly we want it.

If you can't buy the book yourself right now (it's relatively cheap for a graphic novel--I think it was about $15 even with tax from my Barnes & Noble), then please at least let other fans know it exists (I wouldn't have had any idea if not for tumblr) and keep the hype going on social media. I'm stoked to see that DP is trending on tumblr, at least, and I hope the same is true elsewhere. It's a small thing, but it's something corporate decision-makers take note of.

Fingers crossed we get to see more someday. This is one series that deserves to come back from the dead.

But, whether or not we get that continuation: welcome back, Phandom. Congrats and happy release day. 💚

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Hello! I've been reading through all your posts so far and even though I am personally an ML fan and not a salter, I love media analysis and I'm sad that there isn't much of them in the fandom. There are directions in the show that I'm not satisfied with and I'm currently working on a rewrite for a future comic.

I'm curious about your ideas and takes on how you would personally rewrite ML, right now one of my issues is figuring out how the Peacock Miraculous works bcuz of sentimonsters. How would you write them?

I'm glad that you're enjoying my stuff! I label it all as salt because - as best I can tell - this fandom defines that as anything even slightly negative, but my goal is more analysis and discussion than angry ranting. Talking about what a piece of media did wrong and how you would improve it is a fantastic way to improve your own writing. It's why I got into media analysis in the first place!

Funnily enough, I do have a massive rewrite out there somewhere on AO3, so I DO have thought about how to handle sentimonsters. Or, more specifically, I've thought about how to handle the peacock. I'll give those first, then circle back to sentis.

In my humble opinion, the idea of sentimonsters should be scrapped for the following reasons, all of which existed long before the sentitheory was even on my radar:

Sentimonsters are too derivative. They feel like akuma clones and not a unique power. You can tell that the power was only created because they wanted/needed a power that would let the peacock be used at a distance the same way the butterfly is even though no other miraculous works this way.

If you want to do a slavery plot, the kwamis are right there being enslaved. You don't need to add human-looking slaves to the mix. Especially given that many of those human-looking slaves are apparently fine to kill off? Just, the ethics around the way the show does sentimonsters will always make me feel icky. Meanwhile the kwamis don't have the awkward element of being magical constructs that were made to serve. They were a free people before the miraculous. The one way I've played with using Felix is as a kwamis freedom fighter instead of a senti one.

Sentimonsters have too nebulous of a lore. In what way are they emotions brought to life? Outside of Feast, emotions don't seem to effect them at all. Nooroo's powers feel far more emotion based than Dusuu's and it bothers me.

There's also the fact that one of the show's biggest problems is character bloat. No writer alive can write a satisfying story that features a team of 36 characters! (18 humans + 18 kwamis) This is why the kwamis act as a hive mind once Marinette becomes the Guardian. You just can't write that many characters into a scene and keep their personalities straight, so they're now a single unit even though it makes Sass and Wayzz feel out of character.

Give all of that and the way the miracle box is kinda... well, it feels a little too cultural appropriation-ish for my tastes. I won't go on a full rant here, but to give two highlights: the zodiac miraculous don't seem to have a thing to do with the real Chinese zodiac and a box based on Chinese lore would NOT use a black cat for the symbol of bad luck. Black cats being bad luck is relatively modern European lore. In other words, the Chinese stuff is just there for ascetics and not actually representative of Chinese culture, so I had no moral issues scrapping the miracle box and making a much smaller version and neither should you if you're so inclined!

The thing about lore is that it only matters as much as the show makes it matter and, outside of a few key miraculous, I really do think you can change them without most readers caring because of how little the powers actually matter to the show's lore. Like they have completely scrapped the idea of making a person match their miraculous even though that was supposedly a big thing back in season two. This is extra true because it took us so long to learn all the powers in canon, so there are a lot of fics that pre-date the canon reveal and do different things.

But if you want to keep sentimonsters to be more canon accurate, I would consider all of the following as options or things to keep in mind. Feel free to use all or none of them as I'm probably never touching this plot and, if I do, it will doubtless be different from whatever you do:

Doing something to make the difference between valid and non-valid sentimonsters abundantly clear and not just "the creator decides who is valid" OR just don't make any sentimonster valid and have Emilie have used the miraculous out of a desire to help people because she didn't know it would kill her

Have Gabriel be more conflicted about the use of sentimonsters since, you know, his kid is one and Adrien, Felix, and Kagami are the only sentimonsters he dealt with for many, many years

Consider having Nathalie make one sentimonster (maybe even present it as her own child) in order to help Gabriel so it's not a slew of akuma 2.0 on the battlefield. Instead its someone at the school looking for Ladybug and Chat Noir after the villains realize that they're teenagers. (This could be a good way to use Lila and make her powers make sense)

Redo Dusuu's Force or make the tie between sentimonsters and emotions more clear. Like Felix is made from jealousy and Adrien is made from love so that's the source of their conflict

Use Felix as a third, morally neutral party who only cares about sentimonsters and have him act toward those goals like we all thought he was going to after season five. Magneto from X-men should be your template for him not whatever canon did.

Consider letting Kagami know from the start and let her know that she and Adrien are meant to be, but she's not allowed to tell him the truth or something. If you don't go that route then, at the very least, have her finding out be a big deal for her relationship with her mother.

Go all in with Adrien's commands. Gabriel wants Adrien to date Kagami? He's going to date Kagami. None of this Y-7 undo button BS. Go big or go home.

Give the sentimonsters a way to break free. That's what the power of love is supposed to be about. You could go super cheesy with this if you combined it with Adrien's source emotion being love. The literal love child using the thing that made him to overcome what he was made to be to be what he wants to be sounds very fun to me.

Consider giving the senti kids superpowers. It's honestly kinda weird how relatively normal they are. Like, sure, Felix is supposed to be super smart, but we only know that from his Wikipedia and that's about it.

I could go on, but that's a lot, so we'll stop here. Feel free to send additional asks or message me. I have many, many thoughts about how to fix canon while trying to stay true to the core ideas of the story. Or, at least, the things I consider to be the core. I legitimately enjoy the adaption process and think the fun of fanfiction is largely trying to fit alternate takes on canon into the base framework so it still appeals to fans of the source.

[zuko-always-lies]

What are your thoughts on any ways that Zuko and Azula's relationship could be reconciled post-canon (not including comics)? Because it's really hard to see any scenario - that isn't incredibly convoluted like the comics - where Zuko is willing to make amends/admit his mistakes and blindspots (which would be necessary for gaining her trust), especially considering he has no one pushing him to help Azula considering Iroh's disdain for her and the Gaang's far more rightful disdain for her. And of course even if he was willing to try once or twice Azula's obviously not going to jump at the opportunity to frolic in the gardens with him.

I have to agree. Azula showed tremendous kindness toward Zuko, and he stabbed her in the back and she lost everything because of it. She has zero incentive to try to reconcile again or to trust him again.

Zuko has plenty on his plate with being an unprepared 16 year old Firelord. He also both has massive resentment toward Azula, largely for things she wasn't even responsible for, and zero understanding of her whatsoever. She's so demonized in his mind that I doubt he'd have much desire to try to help her, and even if he wished to help her, he has so little understanding of her experiences that he would probably make things worse. Best case scenario is he that puts Azula in some sort of place he can forget about her in and ignores her. Worst case scenario is that he's actively abusive toward her.

However, I could see several situations which might lead toward reconciliation. One would be that they both grow up. Once Zuko matures a bit, gets more life experience, gets further away from Ozai's abuse, and maybe even his children of his own, he might look at his relationship with Azula in a different light. Azula being able to look back at what happened at a distance of several years might also dull a bit of the pain and the hurt for her.

Another alternative, a very dark one, draws from the fact that Azula is broken and desperate and lonely and isolated at the end of the series. She might latch onto Zuko like she did Ozai and be willing to go to extreme lengths and do anything to earn his approval. Note that this is the "Ehasz arc."

A more attractive alternative is that a third party mediates between Zuko and Azula in a way that ultimately improves their relationship. That would be very difficult in itself but more realistic than any other alternative. The most suitable candidates I can think of for this are Ursa and Mai, both who are highly incentivized to do what they can to have the Fire siblings get along. The Gaang wouldn't be the best choice here, as they're only children themselves and don't know Azula well. Ty Lee also wouldn't be great in this role, since Zuko doesn't respect her and won't listen to her.

[saltnpepperbunny]

Hi SPB, I was wondering where your motivation/creativity comes from and how you harness it? Thank you!

Hi! owo Uhhh a few different places. My motivation and my creativity come from different places but they work together to help me do what I do.

My motivation to make comics comes from:

Comments and feedback, I want my art to be a conversation with another person and thus feedback is kinda what I make comics for. I love how as my stories speak, people will speak back.

The fun of drawing, I just enjoy drawing comics like as an activity, it makes me happy, it's a very rhythmic and relaxing process, and thus its a regular part of my days. I just love having the finished page to stare at at the end.

The fervor of storytelling, that shit's my serotonin bro, I just need to write stories, it's an important part of how I navigate my life on like a structural level. It's how I process the world around me, so as my life goes on and stuff happens, I feel motivated to write about it. And comics are the main way I do my writing now.

To keep up w my community, I surround myself w other comic artists and a lot of us work, draw, and create together. It's a sacred bond between artists. u'w'u If I stopped comicking, I'd have like nothing to show them? There'd be no goal to work towards? Most of my friends make comics lol.

And my creativity comes from:

The need to process, as life treks on I tend to have Big Feelings about Almost Everything and writing is how I process those feelings and just, the world around me in general. You input experiences into this machine and I will output a fiction story. It's how I make sense of things and make meaning of my experiences.

The drive to keep improving, I always want my storytelling to get better and thus I have to continuously get creative to invent new ways to write and draw better. It's a never ending process, there is ALWAYS something to sharpen, so I just keep searching for new means to improve, things to tweak, ways something could be better. It's a never ending challenge and I need challenge in my life. It's like something to work on.

Internal experiences, feelings, opinions, fears, hopes, wishes, thoughts, ideas, questions, answers, et cetera.

Love, is definitely involved. Love has a huge involvement in my creative process. It's soaked into so many different, little parts of the process. Like uhhh taking a character through a journey? That's love. Writing new kinds of rep? That takes love. It's kinda just everywhere and it's something I can draw from very consistently cause those Big Feelings I mentioned includes love.

I also tend to write from anger and a strong sense of in/justice. Could you tell lol.

I like to take a lot of inspiration from nature, also. All my backgrounds are just me blowing a kiss to mother nature.

This is getting long sorry but how to harness it all, uhhhhh. Practice. Build habits. Make an effort to get creative on the regular, not necessarily every day, but try to avoid massive dry spells unless you're really not doing well or there's an understandable reason for it. Dry spells are ultimately unavoidable but don't have to define your creative cycle, it IS possible to create on the reg unless you're not taking care of yourself well. Don't only create when you're hyperfixated cause that just builds a habit to do that, if you're not feeling up to it, just do the thing for like 30 minutes and then either stop and chill or keep going cause the momentum will now carry you. I create p much every day cause it's an important part of how I navigate my life i.e. the processing motive and insatiable need for challenge, I can never stop writing now as long as I live cause writing is how I meet those needs. So yeah, just be like me and sell your soul to the gods art! Make the thing you wanna do fun, don't beat your head against a brick wall if that creative hobby you're trying to get into just really isn't sticking, it's not ALWAYS meant to be and it's okay to admit that and just move on and try something new. I tried many different kinds of art before I ever found comicking and it stuck, and now I basically just do comicking and some of my other older creative hobbies fell away. That's fine, that's life, you'll find your thing if you keep searching out new things. Oh, and also get in community, surround yourself w other creatives and consume they're work, trust me you'll get inspired p quick.

wow this got longER. sorry!

[dailycharacteroption]

Book Review: Classic Monsters Revisited

I had said yesterday that we’d be looking at how Pathfinder reimagined goblins and other monsters , and now I’m here to deliver!

Classic Monsters Revisited was the start of one of my favorite series of setting books for Pathfinder’s core setting, the Revisited series. Like the name suggests, it was all about showcasing various monsters (plus one time they focused on magic items) and how Pathfinder sought to recontextualize them and breathe new life into the concepts, which they did at first, thought later iterations were more focused on showing off the new monsters they had ripped wholesale from folklore or made up wholesale, though they never truly abandoned revisiting monsters that had been featured in past iterations of D&D.

The monsters this time around were Bugbears that were less “vaguely bearlike uber-goblins” and more creepy stalking predators like the boogeyman that their name is actually a variant of; Gnolls that were, let’s be honest, more or less the same as D&D gnolls but with a different deity slapped onto them; The Goblins we all know and love from their  fusion of Stitch and Gremlins; Hobgoblins being the classic militaristic types we know of but also being created by divine intervention on goblin stock; Kobolds, who aren’t changed that much from past systems beyond not having any connection or reason to hate gnomes in particular; Lizardfolk, which aren’t changed much beyond actually exploring their culture and demonstrating how different societies have different social mores; Minotaurs, which aren’t changed much at all; Ogres, who’ve gone from lesser giants to being “The Hills Have Eyes” style degenerate mutants and hybrid offspring of humans and giants, while being capable of some of the most monstrous acts both against other humanoids and even each other; Orcs, who aren’t changed much and were just given relevant lore for the setting; And finally, Trolls, which aren’t changed much but are given interesting lore tying them to the First World and also exploring the difficulties of maintaining the metabolism necessary for their regeneration.

The art and lore in this book is all fun stuff that taps into not just the physiology and behavior of these beings, but also where they live and what their lives are like. Interestingly, the art for trolls appears to predate the official look that Pathfinder gave to troll-kind, and hearkens back to their look in D&D, what with the elongated drooping noses that almost certainly would get in the way of eating and whatnot, whereas later Pathfinder would give them massive tusks and underbites, a more potbelly appearance, and somewhat porcine faces.

One the one hand, this book perfectly showcases how Paizo was willing to go above and beyond to make some of their classic humanoid threats more interesting and diverse, be it the comical goblins, the terrifying bugbears, or the pure disgust of ogres.

On the other, however, a lot of the humanoids in this book actually are barely changed or fleshed out at all, and are sometimes just awful for awfulness's sake. Gnolls and orcs being universally cave-dwelling slavers and brutes, kobolds being cowardly, minotaurs barely having a society at all, and so on.

The good news is, this eventually gets better, with orcs being given proper nuance with the matanji orcs of the Mwangi Expanse being goodly guardian warriors, while the Belkzen orcs even got enough nuance to see that they were forged by the struggles caused by both the Dwarven Quest for Sky and the return of the sun, while others focus their pride and physical prowess elsewhere.

Meanwhile, gnolls get a more matriarchal culture (far cry from their weirdly misogynistic patriarchal one even while worshipping a goddess), and we see, especially with mwangi gnolls, them being a practical and pragmatic people, a far cry from the assumption of lazy slavers that only represent the most monstrous tribes of their kind.

And Minotaurs! Oh, how they improved minotaurs over time, including giving them a better origin based in Pathfinder’s not-Greece Ibyldos rather than being “Lamashtu did a thing again”.

All this to say nothing of how kobolds have evolved into a people able to match their pride with their actions and even get new lore where they adapt and evolve to match powerful beings they revere.

All of these changes as the Pathfinder setting evolved does mean that while this book is a good jumping-off point, a lot of it is woefully out of date.

Some of that goes back to the original assumption that Pathfinder was going to be a more edgy, dark fantasy setting. (They went as far as to explicitly state the carnal, often incestuous, habits of ogres, for example.) However, some of it also ties back to the lingering assumptions of Gygax’s vision of D&D, wherein biological determinism was very much a thing and “evil” ancestries were inherently so with no chance of redemption and no moral recourse but to wipe them from the earth, and all the horrific implications that come with that when used as a metaphor for the real world.

Thankfully, we as a fandom are happily moving away from such things, with conflicts with orcs and goblins being more about struggles for resources, cultural misunderstandings, and of course the influence of evil gods teaching them that malicious right-makes-right ideologies are superior, which you can happily apply to any people, even the traditionally “good” peoples.

I think that will do for today, but this has been a fun revisitation. Now, on to something more focused on mechanics than lore!

[sisaloofafump]

There's this misconception that Golden and especially Silver Age comics were particularly sexist. In reality, when looking at the treatment of Lois Lane, it's the Bronze Age and the introduction of second wave feminism that is actually so much worse.

For context, in the Golden Age, Lois is an independent and fiercely capable reporter. She has massive amounts of agency and often solved and leads investigations on her own. She gets rescued a lot, yes, but she is kidnapped due to her own actions, not Superman's. In the Silver Age, adherence to the comics code (and shifting public preference towards romance comics) made her character's main goals include marrying Superman. One may think this would lead to abhorrently sexist writing but it didn't. Instead, it used these constraints to make her one of the most ethically complex and defined characters, written by authors who love her, and taking her previous iteration's strengths and fleshing them out into a fully three-dimensional character. In addition, she may be less fierce, but she is one of, if not the most active member of Superman comics. She is uniquely a problem solver, problem starter, and investigator, acting in every position of case rather than just reacting to someone else's actions.

Then along comes the Bronze Age. Initially it looks like she is improving even further—she learns to fight, she regains independence from Superman, she lessens her need for marriage. But those changes don't last long.

Lois is flattened until she looses all personality and competency. Every story ends with her saved by Superman. Lois and the Black characters have the occasional quip about "Woman power!", all of which is made to be mocked by the audience and by Superman. Suddenly Clark (with and without cape) is telling her not to do things because she is a woman. Suddenly the things she easily could have done in the past, she can't anymore. It's not just how horrifyingly they treat Lois, it's how they make other characters sexist to balance her "feminism" out.

The Lois Lane comics go through several management shifts and by the 70s they are edited by a woman, who doesn't get to write the responses to the fan letters, and instead they institute the most comically sexist columnist I have ever read. It is so bad that I genuinely thought it was a joke. Even in the regular letter sections, the editors have clear contempt for Lois, a stark contrast to the love that was so apparent in the Silver Age.

The Lois series ends and she is booted to Superman Family, where she is treated far from good but at least she is her own character. In mainstream Superman, she is reduced to a background love interest with no capabilities, personality, or interests. Even in romance she is treated horribly by Superman and Clark. They keep saying that he loves her, but despite being more official than ever, it sure doesn't show.

Here are some panels for your perusal:

And of course, the mystery columnist:

Compare that with this editor's response from the Silver Age. See how much love they had for her and all her flaws. How much effort they put into making her a well rounded character. This is what we lost.

[striderl]

I have a general art-related question, if that's okay. I admire how _quickly_ you seem to be able to produce art -- whenever someone sends you a character-based ask, you seem to always answer it with a nice little picture (not just a scribble or something) with lineart and often colouring too! Do you have any advice for acquiring art stamina like that? I used to enjoy drawing, but got burnt out on it because every piece felt like so much WORK and it drained the enjoyment for me. I absolutely could not match the output you do!

Thanks for the compliment, lensman! Your drawings are equally cool too! I'm engrossed in the textures especially. And yes, sometimes I’m even amazed by the many asks I’m able to answer in a single week. Usually, I answer them within 3 days, in rare occasions, it may take me 2 weeks or so to answer them.

As for insights, there you go.

#1: Practice is the key. To not get art block, you need to be constantly practicing, like doing scribbles on your sketchbook when you have time. It can be anything, from basic shapes to “whatever you can spy with your little eye”. Also, improve your speed while doing it, and limit your time to finish an acceptable rough draft, so you won’t lose the motivation to finish the entire drawing.

#2: Mastery. READ THE MANUAL AND INSTRUCTION of whatever platform you are using to make art, and master the tools, so you won’t drag on too long on a single project. Personally, I use a mixture of Procreate and ibisPaint X to make art and comics. And the skills don’t come for free, you need to constantly learn new features in order to keep up the pace and limit the time you spend on each project. Honestly, I think I spend more time on Youtube, Pinterest, and Instagram scavenging art tips and resources than doing other things with them. The result is rather rewarding, the knowledge I gained about the color wheel, anatomy, and platform features like multiply and overlay are really helpful.

#3: Reference. I always have available anatomy or art references on my side, usually from Pinterest, so I don’t need to waste time speculating what the result would look like. I also collect references I’m interested in whenever I have time, so I’m well prepared whenever I want to start a new project.

If you want to check it out, this is the cover I made for Foley’s playlist, which I finished within 3 hours.

#4: Motivation. You need to truly enjoy the process of producing art in order to not get an art block. I think I never get a single art block period so far. Why? It’s the only way I get to relieve my anxiety. College can be really harsh sometimes, I have a really small social circle, and on top of that I need to deal with stress which most of my peers don’t even need to worry about, like managing an apartment, doing accounting on my own, taking care of electric bills, and more. What’s worse is that people can be massive suckers sometimes, and I just turned 18 a few months ago. I know I can’t just throw a tantrum or jump off a building whenever I feel stressed, so I just move on and focus my attention on doing better in art. If people want to insult me, I just insult them back with my talent.

Also, I mentioned this in my reblog to your Skibidi Toilet anniversary post. My parents don’t approve of me doing art like this, because it’s “unrealistic” and basically “useless”, I just want some space where I can express my creativity. Ironically, defiance can be a motivation sometimes.

Plus, I just purely enjoy the feeling of sitting in my room, listening to my favorite playlist, and sipping on a cup of hazelnut matcha, while doing art. And I always, ALWAYS appreciate people putting comments in their reblogs, it’s like an accomplishment, and it shows that people really check out my content and READ IT, instead of “wow, cool art”.

If I don't feel like doing art, I'll just go for a 5 miles run instead. Physical health is still important : }

[ask-mashirao-ojiro]

Hey-ho welcome to hellscape of my self-indulgence! This blog mostly exists for me to spew out all the thoughts I have on this and other background characters because I could not contain myself. I'm also using it to ease myself into comic-making and improve my general art skills.

Below the cut is a "brief" but important summery of things you may want to keep in mind when interacting with this blog. Note that this information and the entire blog contains MASSIVE spoilers for the story of My Hero Academia, including (and especially) the ending.

This story begins after All For One's defeat, post clean up period, right when the students of 2-A return to UA for the last stretch of their second year.

This story focuses mostly on Ojiro, of course, because I'm sucker for background characters who never get any attention. Other background characters will also be explored.

A guide to the themes I'm hoping to explore:

Self Worth | This will probably be the main theme of the story. It's a whole thing, expect to see it a lot.

Trauma and Healing | These kids went through two quirk wars, watched people die, and nearly died themselves. This will also likely be a prominent topic.

Disability | This will probably only come up occasionally. While I am disabled myself, I have little experience with the particular cases that may show up here. I'd like to be as respectful as possible when exploring these topics, and I'll be doing as much research as I can before diving in. Should someone find an issue with my portrayal of someone, PLEASE let me know. I don't want to encourage a false idea of a vulnerable group.

Sexuality | Teenage sexuality will likely be touched on, however, I will not be depicting any characters in overtly sexual situations. Rather, this theme will mostly talk about identity, self-discovery and communication.

You can expect some content warnings closely tied to those topics. You'll be able to find specific warnings in the tags of each post, and posts containing potentially triggering subject matter will be safeguarded behind a 'keep reading' button, wherever possible.

With that in mind, I'm open to most kinds of asks. You can ask the characters basic questions, propose a scenario (quirk accidents, headcanons etc) or try to delve deeper into a character's thoughts, potentially influencing them.

Asks that are just outright sexual, or otherwise offensive, will be ignored and deleted.

That's all - Have fun!

[planet-crait]

I feel like I’m like the one one who feels this way and people may hate me for having this opinion but I’ll share my thoughts anyways. If you haven’t seen Apology Tour and don’t want to be spoiled please do not read below the cut.

One thing I was previously was concerned about happening in Apology Tour was Stolas going on stage to sing to all of Hell how terrible Blitz is….and while Verosika certainly pressured him…he still in the end got on stage and sang about Blitz and ending with he sucks. And the whole setup is far worse than I initially thought. Verosika is throwing a party devoted to how terrible a person Blitz is and….sorry Verosika fans but that is so beyond fucked up of her.

I’m not saying she can hurt but throwing a party devoted to hating Blitz is toxic as ever loving fuck. And the show does not seem to want to address this, instead focusing on making her only the sad uwu victim of Blitz who is the worst and totes deserves this emotional beatdown, which has gotten to the point of being viscerally uncomfortable to watch.

The show wants us to see Blitz is someone who has screwed up and needs to improve. Thats not a problem, thats fine and interesting even! But we’ve long since been there with Blitz. He screwed up with Fizz with Barbie and Verosika. He hurt them, and even if with Fizz (and likely Barbie) is was an accident he still hurt them, and with Verosika their relationship was seemingly originally a situation where they both fucked up big time that caused such anger towards each other. And it worked great. Verosika doing something bad doesn’t make what Blitz did okay and vice versa. But the show seems so determined to show Blitz “ruins lives” they swung into comically unrealistic portrayal of this.

Does the show really expect me to believe Blitz has left so many broken hearts a large mansion can be filled up every year? While also insisting since last year Stolas is the only new ex? While also having only shown Blitz hurting Verosika and Stolas at said insanely full party. It just does t work. It’s a very bizarre choice, especially since it could so easily be worked around to still, you know work? Stolas talks to himself about how crazy the party is, just have the person who overheard Stolas mention that most everyone their is their for Verosika and they do all the hate Blitz stuff because she’s famous and they want to enjoy the party with her or even Blitz is a great stand is for their own ex’s that hurt them. There can still be partners Blitz hurt in the past but it would bring it back to a far more believable realm if most of the party goers just want to hang out with Verosika. It could still work to really push Blitz towards a breakdown that seems to be coming because as someone with massive self hatred issues he would still look at this party and think “wow I’m such a piece of shit people I don’t even know hate me for existing” or something like that.

Focusing on Stolas for a second, my other fear I didn’t properly express also seems to be happening in that the show seems to be trying to retcon Stolas’s mistakes regarding Blitz. Blitz mentions that Stolas looks down on Blitz and Stolas asks when has he ever looked down on Blitz and Blitz….doesn’t call out for example Stolas calling Blitz his “impish little plaything”, it’s just brushed right past as if it never happened which has me worried a lot of this stuff is being actively retconned which again takes away a lot of the interest of a story of two people who care but both fuck up because of their past traumas and instead wants to make it so only Blitz is a bad person and only Blitz screws up and Blitz is responsible for every bad thing happening.

Back to the party, the show wants us to believe Stolas loves Blitz but he still goes to a party all about hating Blitz, sings a song about him and hooks up with the first person who seems interested. From Blitz’s perspective I don’t see how he can believe Stolas loves and cares about him when he does things like this, to me the only thing it does is further confirm to Blitz that he doesn’t matter to Stolas, that he’s just an object to be bought as uses and discarded when they’re bored. And it’s gotten to the point where I think the torture and punishments being pushed onto Blitz is becoming cruel with no end in sight.

[doritofalls]

still on s1 and the boys is like... a Good show, but if you took out every plot thread that is entirely based on SA as a plot device in some shape or form you'd be left with like, 6% of the plot and yet. still a massive improvement on the comic somehow.

[popculturebuffet]

Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes Retrospective Part 1: Breakout (Episodes 1-7) (Comissioned by WeirdKev27)

Assemble all you happy people and welcome to the first of many looks at one of the greatest cartoons in marvel history, an adaptation that honors the source material while streamlining and improving it to create something impressive. One of the best adaptations and one of the last before the MCU was in full force. It's a show unlike any other, it's Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes.

And the timing isn't concidential. While i'm a few months off, this year marks the 60th anniversary of the avengers, the first time the team assembled and hulk was a clown for a bit because the 60s. And since I both hadn't really talked about the Avengers on this blog despite being a massive marvel nerd and because i'd rewatched this very arc a few months back, I was happy to jump on it when Kev suggested this. He won't be sticking around for the rest of the retrospective, but I plan to cover this series on and off for the foreseable future as i've only seen about half of it and hadn't rewatched it in years and it was about damn time I did. And i'm glad I am as this is one of the sharpest shows in marvel history.

For those less familiar Earth's Mightiest heroes was a cartoon that ran for two seasons from 2010 to 2012, and was a fan faviorite for most comic nerds like myself, as what I caught of it I love. It's not hard to see why either: EMH is a giant love letter to the Avengers history and Marvel in general: Ciro Nireli, Christopher Yost and Joshua fine, who developed the show, all were clearly fans and thus try to cram as many iconic foes for each of the avengers as they could into this show, from cameos to arc villians to our big threats, just about every major avengers threat you could want makes it's way into season 1.

It's also a smart remix: The show takes after the earliest days of the team, starting with the original roster of Iron Man (Tony Stark), Ant-Man/Giant Man (Hank Pym), Wasp (Janet-Van Dyne), Hulk, and Thor (Odinson), while soon adding cap as happened in the comics, as well as adding longtime mainstays hawkeye and black panther soon into the season, with many of season 1's episodes adapting early avengers tales and the art style is a very stylistic jack kirby style art, while still being it's own thing with a bit more expression and some anime styling in the eyes and how the action unfolds.

That said it's clear the crew was also aware those early tales could use a coat of paint and thus the series takes from all across the heroes histories, combining Kang's first apperance with the later epic kang dynasty for instance, or setting up Carol Danvers becoming Ms Marvel as soon as Captain Marvel debuts. It's a streamlined approach that feels like what the ultimates should've been: honoring the past but looping in the present, with the classic avengers being assembled using the breakout arc from the new avengers. More ont hat later. The result is a fresh take on the cast that feels awesome.

It also feels unique as this was before a LOT of change swept through the marvel universe and productions: the x-men and the ff still show up beofre their LONG unecessary hiatus due to marvel being dicks about not owning either's film rights, the mcu was just budding so only iron man is modeled after that version as Cap and Thor's films would air the same year as EMH, and Black Widow is a recurring character rather than part of the team, though it was hinted they might have her join up eventually.

It also happened before a lot of comics biggest events of the 2010s, which like the MCU stuff isn't bad at all, it's just neat to see just how diffrent things were: Carol Danvers wasn't captain marvel yet, next gen heroes like Ms Marvel or Miles Morales weren't around, and ideas like Jane as Thor or Sam Wilson as Cap hadn't happened. It's an intresting time capusle of a comics brand before it changed forever.

So opening this capusle is a treat. As for this batch of episodes, EMH started in a unique way: With shorts. See at the time cartoons were just starting to captalize on the concepts of minisodes, tiny shorts in continuity usually distributed via youtube. Most shows just have some skits, like Lapis trying to destroy her phone thinking Steven's trapped or Tilly Green getting buried in cats

EMH decided to get ambitious with theres: TWENTY shorts, all from what I can tell intended to be repackaged as full episodes, all setting up important stuff for the series and serving as introductions to our main cast before they all assemble properly, including later additions Captain America, Hawkeye and Black Panther.

It's an approach I respect: much like the MCU was doing around the same time, it allows the writers to set up each character, get to know who they are as a person, what their deal is and put them into place for the series proper, essentially giving them their own solo series like they had in the comics. It's a great idea and makes these feel like characters who had their own lives and plenty of adventures BEFORE we step into them, and makes the idea of them coming together all the more awesome. It also fits the avengers well: the x-men and fantastic four are largely their own spheres of the marvel universe and most members of those teams were created for them. With the avengers it's marvels' best and brightest all assembled into one massive dream team, so showing said team's adventures. We even get setup for later additions to the team: Black Panther gets a short detailing his origin story and Hawkeye is a key part of hulks before getting his own.

I have only two gripes with this setup: the first is that it's long. It's well done and important but it's still a LOT of setup, and both times i've found myself happy to get to the end: Glad I took the journey but thankful we can get to the main event.

The other is the structure: as a result of them being shorts every non-thor episode here has one segment that serves as an epilogue to the others.. but really dosen't lead as effortlessly in. It feels like the episode ended and we're now just in an extended post credit's sequence. Not a bad one, all of these are necessary and important, it just shows why this type of structure wasn't repeated: it has it's limits, and they show at the end of almost every episode. You could for instance cut out the kang bit that starts the cap one and the kang segment that ends the cap ones and have a cohesive story. Their still GOOD shorts, it's just clear they don't quite work as a cohesive episode, which woudln't be an issue if these shorts also weren't clearly part of the season order.

Still I admit these are minor complaints. They drag the presentation down slightly.. but not enough for me to not have enjoyed this episode pile. So assemble under the cut as I break down the first 7 episodes of Avengers: EMH

Iron Man is Born! (Micro Episodes: Iron Man is Born!, HYDRA Lives, Behold, The Mandroids!, and Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.)

So our first episode. .is third on disney+. Getting this out of the way if you watch these on disney +, start with this one, as disney mildly messed up the airing order. It isn't as bad as say Ducktales was at first, which was so bad the creators had to ask directly, but it's still very noticable disney coudln't be arsed to.. move two episodes on the list they gave people down a few slots. Then again this is the same company who won't give us the weekenders dammit, so i'm not surprised, just mildly in convinced.

Anyways this short follows Iron Man and as we go through our mightiest heroes, I thought it'd be fun to give my own personal history with each character. As I said, I really haven't gotten to dive into the avengers on this blog. I've covered Avengers #200 and Avengers Annual #10 this year but the former is more a Brotherhood of Evil Mutants story guest starring Ms Marvel and the Avengers, and the former.. is a nightmare from which there is no waking where only The Scarlet Witch and the Vision are remotely in character. Neither were really a time to talk about the team, the members of said team, or anything besides deep hurting and an antidote for said deep hurting that involves Carol Danvers verbally bitchslapping the avengers. Which is awesome, but not really a time to go "Gee this is why iron man is so great".

So starting with the cool exec with a heart of steel, I'm a pretty big iron man fan. I love Tony as a character a guy whose arrogant and overly macho at times.. but deep down is a man who just wants to make a better world after helping burn it to the ground for a profit. Someone who can be an arrogant know it all ass.. but also someone who once you've got his loyalty, he'd die for you. A man struggling with addiction, but whose also a poster boy for getting better.

I became a fan of Tony's around the movie, as before that I only really knew him as "that guy who was on spider-man once", "that weird cartoon I watched once or twice" or "That fucking asshole who ruled the superhero community with an iron fist and kicked every dog he could find post civil war".

Thankfully the movie changed that, and along with finding out his fascinating history and the utterly awesome run by Matt Fraction that launched alongside the movie, something I badly want to cover in some form at some point, I was a fan of shell head for life. My favorite runs for him aren't anything suprising: Fraction's run with invincible iron man, Dennis O'Neil's awesome epic run that sees Obdiah Stane break tony with every intention of having his enemy relapse and see's tony rebuild himself while Rhodey puts on the suit, and of course the classic Layton and Michillne run that introduced Tony's Alcholism in the first place.

The movie is important to this series as it not only launched the MCU, but said MCU incoming is likely why it happened, and while it was still young enough at the time to not impact this series heavily for most characters, that wasn't going to happen with tony. Tony, his CFO Pepper and his best friend and military liaison Rhodey, are all heavily modeled after the movie versions. That said given said versions are entirley accurate to the comics and all the MCU did to Tony was give him even more swagger.. this isn't remotely a bad thing and making sure kids had the iron man they were familiar with dosen't hurt the series. The suit's still more designed after the then current bleeding edge suit from the comic, one of my favorites. I have no issue with using stuff from the MCU, the mcu is mostly great. My issue is when latter stuff kinda.. ignores the comics except to bring in more people to punch.

Iron Man is Born gets tony down pat, in large part thanks to his VA, Eric Loomis. To my shock Loomis hasn't done a ton outside of play tony in this show and various video games but damn if few do it better. He gets the swagger, the desire to do better, and the stubborn ass refusal to let people help him down PERFECT, as does the writing. This is tony stark. Leading with him was also smart given, again the movie would be fresh on everyone's mind.

What's also neat about this one is it dosen't put tony up against any familiar foes. We'll still see some in Breakout and like the other heroes here he's already well experienced by the time the series opens up. The only thing close to it is Ultimo, a giant robot he fights in cell phone footage at the start of the episode, and even then that's just to establish Iron Man Slaps.

No instead it sells Tony's obession with his tech not hurting people by putting him up against some HYDRA robots using his tech. For those less familiar with marvel stuff, HYDRA are a bunch of snake themed nazi offshoots who are everywhere and generally the go too mook to punch in the face in the marvel universe. Who dosen't want to punch a snake nazi? Except bob. He's just there for dental. Oh bob.

The fight with said HYDRA bots is awesome: not only are they well designed, but it's classic iron man stuff: his suit running out of power, and tony having to use his brains, and hold out against his suit rapidly draining. Been used before? Sure. Helps establish how Tony fights and how his suit is both super strong and has a logical weakness in battery life? Yup.

And the best part is.. while HYDRA are his main threat... the real conflict simmering underneath this one.. is Stark vs S.H.I.E.L.D. the world's top super cops and shady assholes. Wether their being actually helpful or being obtuse and trying to obstruct the hero largely depends on the day, with the MCU making them more helpful and less greasy.

See SHIELD is mad Tony stopped making weapons. Tony is mad they won't quit bugging him about that, as he simply.. dosen't want to be an arms dealer no more. Which is fair. He made their weapons, and as he makes clear to Rhodey who also wants him to work closer with SHIELD, he's still HELPING them. He just won't build weapons. As we find out in breakout he built the Vault, one of four supervillian prisons , this one specializing in tech criminals. So he hasn't STOPPED helping them, he just wont' give them tech to go kill people with, which is fair. While they don't give his origin, at least not yet, it's very clear whatever version of it taught him the same lesson: just because someone else fires the gun dosen't mean you won't have blood on your hands.

So naturally SHIELD"S reaction to Iron Man taking down HYDRA.. is to try to arrest him

Yeah Tony has.. done ABSOLUTELY nothing wrong here.. and Nick Fury, for all his flaws we'll see in VERY short order, is not so stupid as to fire and orders them to stand the fuck down. The fuck is implied.

Tony trying to help them.. instead gets them to fire on him as the SHIELD Agents are using mandroids powered armors using tony's tech.. and unlike the comics where he BUILT the mandroids for them as a compromise, no lethal weapons but still a way to be on even foot with superheroes, here they just flat out used his blueprints to make their own weapons and expect him not to be mad. He has no right to get mad at them for doing this, he sold them the goods and clearly gave them enough legal room to do whatever, but they have no right to be mad at him for SAVING THEIR LIVES.

And they are as while Tony takes down the last hydra bot that suddenly wakes up, when he shows up at the hellicarrier, RIGHTFULLY pissed at being fired on and having them make their own iron man.. maria hill, Nick's right hand and like the comics a total asshole, PUTS A GUN TO HIS HEAD

I mean yes she has him surrounded by shield agents and if fighting them tony would half to hold back.. but he's still a man in a mostly powered armored suit that can suplex a train, while your only strategy is "hope he's really scared of a hand gun".

Fury wisely asks her to stand the fuck down, again fuck's implied, and we get a really compelling argument with him and tony: Tony has every right to not want to sell weapons, while Fury makes the point that with supervillians ont he rise they NEED this tech to compete. Tony still wins in my eyes mostly because while yes he's witholding tech and what not.. SHIELD... isn't hurting. They made the mandroid armors, they have the tech to compete with the hydra bot likely bodying them because it has the element of suprise. THey have a giant hellicarier, tons of staff, and plenty of super powered allies help keeping the various super prisons safe. Granted all four prisons are about to become paper mache, but that's not down to SHEILD being stupid. While Tony dosen't SAY it to his face, which given this is tony is a fucking achivement... the issue isn't that Fury can't handle these or the various super powered heroes out there don't have this covered for now. It's that Fury dosen't have CONTROL over it. IT's a problem inherent in most versions of Nick: it's not enoguh to be the world's top cop he has to CONTROL the situation, the info everything. He's often resonable sure but he puts control over what makes sense and antagonizes valuable allies simply by not respecting they want autonomy.

Our backup story is really just "why nick fury is badass" and "Why hydra is super dangerous". Turns out Fury has their leader, Baron Strucker. Strucker is an egotistical nazi who frequently runs hydra and is Nick's arch enemy and opposite number. So this whole mech thing.. was a smokescreen to get one of their agents, The Grim Reaper in.

The Grim Reaper in the comics is the brother of Simon Williams, aka Wonder Man. We'll get into him more next time as he has a full episode coming up, but long story short, he died, Grim blamed the avengers, and then he tried to kill his brother when Simon came back because he'd put simon on a pedestal. Here the two are pretty much detached and Grim is instead hydra's top enforcer, single handidly breaking in and wrecking up the place, only stopped, and captured alongside strucker, because Nick Fury is that badass. He also life drains fury a bit, giving him his signature white streak from the comics.

Thor The Mighty (Microepisodes: Thor the Mighty, The Siege of Asgard, My Brother My Enemy and the Isle of Silence)

As I said Thor the Mighty is the only one of these episodes that feels like a mostly cohesive 22 minute episode. I mean you can still see the seams where the shorts were, but it's one 22 minute story instead of one long story and one short one connected to the first. It's also not suprisingly my faviorite, but not just for this reason but for having some gorgeous action, great character work and a hell of an ending.

Before all that we have to talk about the god of thunder. Thor's a character I love, I mean I have a mjonr I got a yard sale somehwere around here. But he's also one i'm pickier on story wise: you either have to REALLY sell the scope and granduer of asgard, as done by Walt Simonson, god among men, and currently Al Ewing or do something fresh with it like the start of Jason Aaron' srun, Donny Cate's recent run or my all time faviorite thor story, J MIcheal Strazenzki's run. Thor's not a bad character but there is a tendency to focus on ye olde english and not on him as a person.

EMH thankfully sidesteps that. It shows thor as fucking awesome and has him do cool stuff.. but it also emphasises who the odionson is and WHY he prefers our world over his own. We start with his daily routine: finding some supervillians to punch. He fights the wrecking crew. The Wrecking Crew are villians I like, marvel's designated Jobbers. If you need someone to get their face punched in these are the guys. They CAN be dangerous, see the avengers storyline under sige where the four of them together bodied a slightly frazzled hercules, but their primary there to show up and get knocked down: their strong enough to fight thor, having asgardian enchanted construction tools.

But still not SO strong that say spidey , the runaways or whoever needs a pick me up this week can't body these jackasses. So their the perfect starter foe for thor: powerful enough to give him a good scrap, but not nearly as strong as what he faces on his home turf.

It also serves as a handy intro to Thor's love interest, Jane Foster. The film takes her from a doctor to a paramedic, ironically years before the comics would do the same, and it's a great update: Since Thor isn't spending time as mortal doctor Donald Blake here, there's no real reason for her to be at his practice as a nurse then doctor. Instead she's in the field trying to save lives just like him, and is shown to be fearless DESPITE being a squishy human, getting out to help someone the wrecking crew hurts without any hesitation while her partner cowers in the car instead of helpign. I mean .. I get it , supervillians, but yoru a fucking emt man. Your job is to save lives even at your ownr isk.

Thankfully thor provides backup. And cleans house. The Wrecker TRIES to hold jane hostage, with Thor chastising his lack of honor.. before smacking him in the back of the head with mjonir because hammer's don't respect chilvarly. Thor and Jane hit it off, and I like how even if Jane's entirely in this series to be thor's love intrest.. they give her personality and a reason he falls for her: she's just as dedicated to her job of helping people, and Thor is awed by the fact that DEPSITE not having the powers of a god and being at high risk she does it anyway. Which for us is a normal thing but for thor.. sums up why he likes Midgard so much. On asgard heroisim happens all the time, death is an endless cycle. Here humans are fragile.. but the best of us try to help each other anyway.

Thor is played by Rick D Wasserman and as you can wager i'm mostly focusing on the main cast's voice actors for this review. I"ll point out some others, for instance Jane is voiced by VA legend Kari Whagreen whose also played Charmcaster in the ben 10 franchise and Saturn Girl in the awesome Legion of Superheroes cartoon i'm bound to cover at some point, it's just EMH has a MASSIVE cast and introduces a lot of characters in the span of these 7 episodes, so adressing every single one is a lot to ask. I will try to adress the most important ones and some in future reviews as the voice cast here is positively stacked.

Which makes it weird that once again one of the main cast is a pretty low key voice actor: like with Iron Man, Thor's va did his voice for Marvel Vs Capcom 3 and Marvel Ultimate ALliance 3, but otherwise hasn't really done much else in the main roll. And given just how well Rick slides into the roll of thor as if he was born for this it befuddles me.

But we, and the god of thunder, have bigger issues..s pecifically frost giants thor writing shorthand for "We wanted something big for him to hit" I can only think of one run in recent memory that hasn't invovled thor hitting a frost giant in the face.

Turns out their invasion is being led by Loki. Loki here is another intresting time capsule as a combination of Tom Hidelston's standout performance in Thor and Avengers and character defining runs I need to read and finish respectively from Kireon Gilleon and Al Ewing placed Loki squarely in the anti hero position. As such instead of the genderfluid trickster we know and love, this is the old school loki they were for much of their run and what loki at present is deeply afraid of becomiing again: manipulative, evil and hellbent on burning down everything his dad and brother built.. if with a dope horn helmet. He at least has that.

As such this loki gets into a badass fight with thor, with Thor BEGGING his brother to reconsider.. but it falling on deaf sweet horn helmets. Loki wants to burn it all. Thankfully Thor is able to beat him and being thor does it in the most badass way possible.. gatherting a GIANT STORM above him before focusing all it's energy into a massive lightning bolt. And those horns are really good conductors.

Odin, who sat this one out as his powers are weak at the moment, more on that in a sec, punishes Loki by banishing him to thei isle of silence. It's one of his faviorite pastimes. The other is questioning his son's life choices, wanting Thor to stay to guard Asgard while Odin takes a nap. It's why he was weak: Once a year Odin enters the odinsleep for a few months, to a week to a day. Whatever's narratively convent. It's how he recharges.

Thor.. dosen't want to as he's needed on earth and the two get into a snit and what I like is it's well ballanced: Odin isn't wrong to want his son to protect the kingdom that will one day be his.. but Thor isn't wrong that the warriors three and sif, his best friends and badass warriors, can do the job and Thor is only one call away if needed. Odin bringing up Jane dosne't help as Odin comes off as being a spying dickhead which.. he is. He entirley is. So Thor leaves in a huff.

And so we get our final segment.. which unlike the others ties in directley. We see Loki in the isle of silence, which is neatly depecited as a black and white void with no sound. Loki is visited by the Enchantress. The Enchantress is a powerful sorceress whose vane as she is obessed with thor, but dosen't understand he's just not that into her for being you know.. manipulative, cruel and trying to kill his friends. Turns out, in classic loki fashion, this was ALL his plan. ALLL of it.

He set up thor to run into the wrecking crew by spying on them taking a job for the Leader, more on him later, having the Enchantress disguise herself as a regular woman , i.e. just a green dress, and point thor their way. Fun fact: She and jane have the same VA. Funner fact: Loki is voiced by Scottish actor Grahm McTavish of the Hobbit and Outlander fame. Both do a terrific job.

Loki then pretended to be Baulder, Thor and Loki's third brother and painted what Thor was doing as egocentric hot doggin and grand standing and the Jane thing as more serious than "They just met". All of this was part of a larger scheme... all going to plan.. and neither the god of thunder nor his neglectful dad have any idea they were played. Granted Loki's scheme would fall apart of Odin brought up that conversation with baulder to the brave himself, but while a risk.. Loki still wasn't TOO reckless with this: in any other thor story this would be highly stupid. Here it's risky, but with Odin going into the Odinsleep soon and Loki's plan HINGING on his dad being in the odinsleep anyway, it gives his plan a VERY small window for fuckups.

And what is his plan?

I genuinely forgot what his grand plan was other than "conquer asgard" but we'll find out as the season unfolds. For now we move on to another hero..... some call him a man, some call him a monster.. but is he both?

Hulk Vs the World ( Microepisodes: The Coming of the Hulk! , Hulk Vs the World, This Monster, This Hero!, and Beware the Widow's Bite!)

Now we talk about the strongest one there is, the man whose wrecking the town with a power of the bull, ain't no monster clown, he's that loveable and ever lovin Hulk. And sometimes immortal, grey and what have you but point is Hulk slaps.

Yeah like Tony I love me some hulk: I haven't read nearly enough of his earlier stuff but I adore the late 80's early 90's run of peter david, one i'm just one digital omnibus away from having the complete run of at the time of this writing, and Al Ewing's recent and incomprable Immortal Hulk, which I REALLY need to cover and just. .haven't. Hulk's just a good character: A man with DID who turns into the literal represntations of the emotions he represses: his rage, his childlike innocence that his abusive dad made sure he never had, his need for a father, his hornier and more traditionally masculine traits... Hulk is an endlessly fascinating character.

And the show does him good, partly by exploring a key part of Hulk's marvel history: the fact that for the vast majority of it.. he's an outsider. Oh sure Hulk will show up for crossovers if needed and what not, but most of the time people treat him as a giant monster to be put down instead of simply an angry, powerful being tired of people trying to kill him. Hulk is oft pegged as a monster, and can often turn on his own allies thorugh bad luck or simply a poopy mood. Most people in Hulk's suppporting cast care about BANNER not hulk, while Bruce is often hunted simply because.. he has a mental illness. Granted most mental illnesses can't suplex a train, but many people genuinely don't seem to CARE that Bruce isn't responsible for what hulk does. Hulk is part of bruce banner.. but he's NOT bruce. And the poor guy is constantly hunted for something he tries to cure or control but often simply can't.

EMH emphasies this as when we meet Bruce he's deshevled, in a hat, looking like the unibomber and getting harassed by the police like one. And this is a Bruce who as we learn later ACCEPTS that hulk is part of him: he dosen't LIKE turning into a rage monster, no one does, but he acknowledges the big guy can do things he can't and that curing him simply hasn't worked. He's someone trying to manage his condition: until now staying away from population centers and only going into them.. because he's worried.

This is also our intro to our second of the four supervillian prisons, the Cube. The Cube is a heavily locked down place for radiation based supervillians, mostly gamma mutates like Bruce himself. And in a fitting shift instead of being a place to stash away or rehabilitate their foes.. the cube is basically one giant lab and Bruce fears it's purpose.. is to create a hulk SHIELD can control. It gives a reason to why he runs: Sure the Cube has facilities to help.. but one hulk is already incredibly dangerous and barely managable. Now imagine if say it goes wrong and hulk ends up with no brain or concense like the current hulk, just PURE. RAGE.

Or they succed in making a super solider with gamma power.. but he simply dosen't want to do what they ask and has all the power of a hulk but none of the restraint, and all the ingellgence to misuse it.

Or you get someone with repressed issues and DID like bruce.. but you get something darker than a cranky teenager who just wants to be left alone

Granted that last one didn't turn out so bad but Bruce's point is easy to see just looking at the comics or basic logic: Making more monsters is way too big a gamble and as we saw with SHIELD in the Iron Man episode, they aren't exactly moral paragons to begin with. Fury will go to any lengths to make a safer world... so whose to say even IF best case scenario we get a she hulk style transformation... that fury can be TRUSTED with that power.

So Banner goes to get some answers. Bruce is played by Gabriel Mann, who played Alan M in the JOsie and the Pussycats film I need to cover, and also played Bruce in Wolverine and the X-Men, which shares a universe with this show. More on that later. He does a great job selling Bruce's fear but also compassion.. he wants to CURE the target he's after, Absorbing Man.

Absorbing Man, aka Crusher Creel, is another frequent Jobber of the marvel unvierse, though unlike the Wrecking Crew he's slightly less of a joke, though like them he started with Thor. Unlike them he became more of a hulk villian and a general marvel villian. If they need someone dumb and powerful, Crusher is their go too. In the comics he also has a wife Titania, also a super villian. They have an adorably healthy and happy marriage.

So naturally Crusher.. wants nothing to do with this and wants to instead punch the hulk. He gets his wish.. but then gets plenty of punches back. The Hulk here is based more on then recent Planet Hulk Storyline: Hulk is still not super smart, but isn't thuggish like say Joe Fixit or sadistic like Devil Hulk. He's just savage hulk if given the chance to learn and evolve: all the power, all the rage.. but with SOME smarts and dry quips. He eventually flattens Abosorbing Man easily after a brief fight.

Hulk himself is played by Fred Tatiscore. Much like Thor and Iron Man's VA"S, Tatiscore is marvel's go to for the hulk for adaptations, and has played him a LOTTT: Ultimate Avengers 1 and 2, Avengers Next, Avengers Assemble, Hulk Vs(Also part of this continuity), Wolverine and the X-Men, Hulk and the Agents of SMASH, Ultimate Spider-Man, Marvel's Spider-Man (Cartoon), The Incredible Hulk Tie IN game, Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, All three Marvel Ultimate Alliances. If you want someone mean and green you go with Fred and that's JUST his rolls as hulk. Fred is a prolific voice actor with a WIDE list of credits. This isn't even his only roll in this SERIES, but we'll get to that. If you want a good gravely voice, Fred Tatsicore is your man.

So Hulk is no sooner done punching his daily asshole when General Ross shows up.

So for those who haven't had the distinct pleasure of meeting this twatballoon before, General Ross is one of Hulk's two main arch enemys, the other one we'll meet later. He's the old man who ruins everything, a hard nosed general who already didn't like banner and hunts him and hulk like a monster, and is LARGELY responsible for both the hulk being treated like a monster (though his earlier, far shadier versions didn't help), and for Banner being hutned like one. If someone's going to fuck a situation that could've helped the hulk up, it's this fucking guy. It's shown here brilliantly as one of his men questions WHY banne'rs here.. and ross dosen't care. He can interogate banner later, not getting that bruce wont' want to help him.

Ross charges in with a bunch of smashable robots, but is ordered to stand down by the Black Widow and Hawkeye, in their classic outfits. For Nat it's .. really the same as the movies, for Hawkeye.. he has an actual costume instead of purple spandex and maybe sunglasses... please bring this outfit back.

Thankfully Clint isn't a piece of cardboard like the MCU , though he is an agent of SHIELD since Thor was in production and the Ultimate Unvierse existed. The two plan to subdue the hulk.. yes the martial arts master who is great in hand to hand and the expert marksman... think they can take down the hulk. or at least hold him off. Hulk is less than impressed but has bigger worries as Ross FIRES A MISSLE AT TWO SHIELD AGENTS DESPITE BEING ORDERED TO STAND DOWN

Seroiusly ross you fired on two fedral agents. I'm shocked he wasn't disohnorably discharged but he's gotten away with worse in the comics.

Thankfully hulk beats missle.. and we get a heartbreaking moment as Ross's stupidity and the hulk reflecting the missle nearly downs a hellicarrier... Hulk saves it.. and is taken in anyway. Always hunted, always alone with Banner's cries of having actually made the hulk work and not wanting to be cured falling on the deaf ears of Doc Sampson, usually Hulk's therapist here just a scientest.. and an asshole. Hawkeye though buys it.. unfortuantely he thenf inds out Black Widow is seemingly a tratior and she betrays HIM, framing him for working with hydra. So yeah this one ends with our heros impreioned for doing nothing wrong, the bad guys ahead and things about to get so much worse.

And if you thought we were done with downer endings well.

Meet Captain America (Meet Captain America, The Red Skull Strikes!, If This Be Doomsday!, Come the Conquerer)

Almost forgot this till I was done with this section: So I fucking love Steve Rogers. Loyal to nothing but the dream, kind, thoughtful and a badass through and through. That said when it comes to solo stuff it's hit and miss. I've come around to Ed Brubaker's run as while the winter soldier itself has lost a little impact with the fog of ages, Bucky's turn as cap is great, what i read of Ta'Nesi Coates run is fantastic, and I love Mark Gruenwald's lengthy run. I like cap, he can just be very hit and miss for me on his own, but usually if he's in a team he slaps and there's a reason he's key to the avengers.. and getting his own episode despite not being there for the origin story.

Meet Cap is a fun WII adventure, reminding me of the First Avenger despite coming first. It's got a lot of silver age charm and pep to it as Cap breaks into a hydra castle with the Howling Commandos. The Howling Commandos are Nick Fury's WWII running buddies in the comic and his dad's friends here. The roster's mostly the same, characters I don't really know and who won't be relevant to this show so i'm not going into... except one. He's still not relevant to the show.. but it's a cameo I can't not mention. One of the commandos here is...

YUP. As one of the many subtle hints this is the same continuity as Wolverine Vs X-Men and it's prequel Hulk Vs Wolverine, Logan fucking HOwlett is on the team. He dosen't go snikit either because he dosen't have bone claws in this continuity or simply to keep that under his helmet but it's still neat to see him. THey even got Steven Blum for this tiny apperance. There's small hints like that here and there, with another in the next episode we'll get to but sadly a combination of diffrent networks and Nick screwing over WATXM meant we never got an actual crossover, and Disney screwing over this series meant we never got a fully absorbed finale either. And as should come as no shock as a giant x-men nerd, I plan to cover WATXM after this show.

Anyways, cameos aside it ventually comes down to Cap and Bucky. Bucky is cap's sidekick, and unlike the mcu he' skept to being around 17. This is also one of his first apperances in animation after the landmark winter soldier story recontexutalized Bucky from "Child sidekick who really REALLY shoudln't be fighting WWII" to "that being a propoganda and Bucky being Cap's stealth man who does the stuff too dirty for america's symbol".

As a result this version, at least as Bucky, is voiced by Robin voice actor Scott Melinville, an excellent bit of meta casting given Bucky comes off as a fairly blatant robin clone. The two's banter is genuinely heartwarming as you really get a sense of their friendship.

Cap himself is played by Brian Bloom, who like most of theset voice actors continued the roll for Marvel Vs Capcom 3, it's sequel Infinite, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 and unlike the rest recently in Midnight Suns. He's awesome and plays Steve Pitch Perfectly.

So the two's target is Red Skull, Naziism incarnate. He's pure evil, one of the most horrifying villians in the Marvel Universe and one of the few most other villians will nope out of working with being a literal nazi. And not just a snake Nazi, though as he does here he will work with Hydra. He was taught by Hitler himself. Fun fact that's pretty brutal: he has in fact met Magneto, Marvel's #1 holocaust survivior, who held his contempt of the guy long as he could when forced to work with him for acts of vengeance..a nd then first chanc ehe got Erik buired the guy in a bunker with this chilling as it is awesome sequence

This is just one long fun pulp adventure as Cap punches out hydra agents and i'ts revealed the Red Skull was experimenting with the 9 realms of norse mythology and marvel comics. Well 8, he's already on Midgard. His various captured norse creatures escape from fairies to a frost giant he almost kidnapped. it's fun chaotic brawl as many a nazi is eaten and we get some really cool lighting. We also get a mention of a Baron Zemo. This will be importnat later.

The Baron himself is absent though, and rather than being the one escaping on a rocket it's the red skull. And anyone familiar with the comics just tensed up a bit and really even if you aren't.. the fact that this is Cap's origin story, he's getting a full episode, and it's WWII kinda tells you this won't end well.. and it dosen't. Steve prepares to sacrifice himself.. only for Bucky to tell him "The world needs cap more than it needs bucky" and push him off. The Skull and the boy wonder apparently die .. and seemingly so does cap.

Well.. KINDA, as our last short happens: see the cap shorts kicked off with someone watching and we find out it's Kang, the Conquerer

For those who haven't heard of him or seen him thanks to the MCU, and the less said about his actor there the better, Kang is from the 30th century, a time of peace, love and no traffic accidents. And it was BORRRRRIIINNNGGGG to him, so longing for the past he only read about he stole a time machine, and ended up in a savage post apocalypse he eventually conquered and made the bedrock of his empire, using his time travel tech, vast army and genuine stategic knowhow to conquer civlizations throughout time and space.

Here though he seems to have just conquered this future, which is still a lot... but is about to be a little as it's in danger of being erased.. thanks to Cap. Kang is puzzled since if Steve DIED.. then how is he fucking up Kang's day? We get a really cool seuqence of Kang traveling through the previous parts of the episode, trying to figure out what he missed.. and finding steve frozen. Steve lived.. and thus his future will die. He plans to go back and stop this, but his future starts deteroating already, leaving him with just one warship. He TRIES to get his girlfriend Ravona on the ship in time.. but interfernce means she comes in and thus is stuck between fading out of existance. Kang's able to put her in stasis... but to save his empire steve rogers must die.. in about half a season.

Yeah Kang... dosen't come back up for a while and while it baffled me.. the more I thought about the actual two part premire.. the more i relaized why this was there.

The Man in the Anthill (The Man in the Anthill, Enter the Whirlwind, The Big House, Welcome to Wakanda) We end our slew of origin stories with the introduction of Ant Man and the Wasp, my faviorite avengers out of this intial lineup. I love all these characters but Hank and Janet are some of my faviorites in all of marvel. I became a huge fan of Hanks after reading Dan Slott's run on Mighty Avenger where Hank, follow his ex wife Jan's death, takes up the wasp mantle. He also gets into the greatest pissing contest in all of marvel history with reed richards... though in his defense, Red started it

It was a burn so fucking awesome that the rest of Reed's team were all asking him to please, for the love of god call back and apologize. He did not and suffered the consequences. Again story for another day.

With Jan it took some more time but this series and various awesome apperances, chiefly her time in Zeb Wells uncanny avengers and what i've read of Roger Sterns avengers, sold me on the winsome wasp. For good stories for each, for Hank there's the aformentiond Mighty Avengers, Avengers Academy where he serves as headmaster, and West Coast Avengers for his redemption after his mental breakdown and abuse of Jan. For Jan I recommend Stern's avengers, The Unstoppable Wasp which follows Hank's Daughter and Jan's adopted daughter Nadia but heavily features the OG wasp, and most recently the Wasp mini series from king of awesome Al Ewing and it's currently running Followup, Avengers Inc, both things I intend to cover some day.

So for those less familiar with them or more familiar with the MCU versions, Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne were founding avengers and the first Ant Man and Wasp, going in and out of the team to retire. They were in love.. but sadly hank's obession with work, undiagnosed bipolar disorder, and Janet marrying him while he thought he was someone else because Hank having a mental breakdown was the PERFECT time to marry him, the marriage fell apart, hank had a large scale mental breakdown and well.. you likely know the rest. Both would rebound with Janet finding a new indpendence and sense of self and Hank , after hitting rock bottom.. .finding the will to live on and atone for the various mistakes he made, first as just Hank Pym then as a superhero but not wearing a costume. I love these characters, their rich history, their powers just all of it. I also love these versions of them: With the baggage of his mental breakdown and the infamous and horrifying slap gone, Hank is back to his roots as a science hero, finding his work the neatest thing in the world, while Janet is back to being hank's younger girlfriend , a social butterfly, and the one helping him get to do all his science stuff by doing the promotion, the last one a clever addition. It takes her later swagger and better writing by writers who knew how women worked as opposed to silver age stan lee who while many impressive things.. could not write a woman who wasn't some form of a sexisim. Likewise Hank ignores jan but it's more "he's a workaholic" and less him ranting about her being a stupid woman and friviolus and I wish I was making this up. It takes the best of them in the silver age, mondernizes and makes it awesome

They also each get a short spotlighting them: The first has Hank researching some Vibranium near wakanda when he has to deal with Klaw. Klaw is a recurring avengers bad guy, black panther bad guy and general punching bag. He's not yet to full costumed villian here, instead just having a giant sound canon instead of having said canon as a new hand. He and some mercs break in to steal the vibranium.. and get utterly wrecked in the best way possible as Hank shrinks, easily dispatches them in a scene straight out of a hroror film as each mook goes unconcious, tehn in an awesome moment, when Klaw uses his really big gun fulla sound to try and blast hank, hank GETS BACK UP and presses a button.. shrinkign EVERYONE present. Also while again i'm not pointing out EVERY villian's va i'd be remiss if I didn't point out that Klaw's is mark fucking hamill.

As for Hanks, Hank is played by Wally Wingert, who for once for this show DIDN'T play this character again in Marvel Vs Capcom 3 because Capcom wasn't awesome enough to include an ant man. THey DID include MODOK who Wingert also plays and got to reprise so he still got a well deserved paycheck. He's also been in Bleach and is the voice of Cubot in Sonic. Who knew. I also love the ending: Jan comes in, we get her adorably just throwing her arms around hank.. and then hank casually asking his girlfriend to go save the mercinaries before his ants eat them

The next one focuses on Jan and also shows the contrast between the two. Hank has super powers.. but prefers his research and rehabilitating criminals, not wanting to fight them. In contrast Jan recognizes sometimes you gotta throw hands, action is her reward, and gladly speeds into battle. We also see that while this hank hasn't spiraled yet.. he still has control issues, showing up wot Jan's battle with Whirlwind and telling her to back down, despite her both making the vallid point they can help people and that she can handle herself. And given she stings teh fucker in the eye and beats a guy with tornado powers with just her stingers and some inginuity yeah, hank ease off there bud.

Jan is voiced by Colleen Ann O'Shaughnessey, a va I grew up with as the Voice of Sora on digimon, a role she STILL has to this day. And if that and Jan wasn't enough she's also Jazz Fenton, a characte ri'll be looking into next year. For now though she just rips as Jan, whose the best of the founding 5. I mean their all pretty great and Hank comes close, but Jan's sarcasm, energy but also her heart and talent make her hard NOT to love.

The third short and the final one focused on our duo is the big house which reveals the third of the prisons: The Big House. Focused more on rehabilitation, the Big House was made by hank, housing a LOT of characters i know. Whirlwind tries to escape. If your curious who this schmuck is, Whirlwind is the closest thing Jan has to an arch enemy: he started out fighting her and hank then started stalking Jan who didn't take it well. He's incapaciated as the big house shrink's it's prisoners. Whirlwind is put back inside.. but is insured by the Mad Thinker that they'll be out soon. It's just a matter of time. The Mad Thinker is a long time fantastic four villian, a mad genius and.. that's basically it. He does have an awesome android though

He's a very good dude.

As for Hank and Jan theyt alk to Nick Fury who wants to recruit them. Jan's all for it but Hank says no.. that being said, it's not just Hank not wanting to be a costumed superhero: he dosen't TRUST nick, dosen't think he genuinely wants to rehabilitate criminals, and dosen't trust shield. And given what we've seen.. he's right. Jan follows Hank's lead, if reluctantly while fury.. berates hank for actually carrying about reform and building villians "Comfier jailcells".

With that we get one last standalone to set up episodes later this season: we see the origin of The Black Panther as his dad dies in comnbat fighting Man Ape, whose not NEARLY as cool or nearly as fun in the comics or this cartoon. Man Ape kilsl his dad with help from Klaw while T'Challa's people.. all agree to this trial by combat bullshit.

T'Challa not taking this shit heads off, takes the Panther Mantel and plans to find Allies. To be continued next time, same as cap. I love the animation on The Black Panther as he skulks around. So damn cool. He's voiced by James C Mathis III a voice actor primarily known for playing the character in this and Marvel Vs Capcom.. infinite this time. He's fantastic. And with that it's time for the MAIN EVENT BABY

Breakout Parts 1 and 2

So here we are, the big one. The reason we're all here> the Main Event. Breakout is the proper premiere for the show, airing before the repackaged episodes above though taking place after. And like the MCU with those episodes in mind it feels like a well built up climax to almost everything in the shorts, while setting up the rest of the season, with what wasn't setup for this being setup for later in the season like Cap, Kang and Black Panther.

Part 1 has the characters still in their own corners of the marvel universe before fate assembles them: Tony breaks up an arms deal between AIM, a bunch of super scientests in neat beekeeper suits who function as world conquerers or arms dealers depending on the day, and Lucia Von Bardis, one of Doctor Doom's minons in Latveria. Iron Man easily stops the sale, especially since it's his tech their selling and warns Doom via his proxy: do not come for his stuff again. He then drops them off at the Vault, talking to Jimmy Woo who sadly isn't as in to close up magic here but has noticed it's security is off and asks Tony for help since he designed it and it's not a weapon. Tony agreees.. but also wants him to make an appointment because Tony is a lot of things.. but he's also a massive asshole no matter where in time and space you find him.

Banner is still in the cube, trying to warn Dr. Sampson of two things: the cube is not a jail but an incubator to make another hulk, and that filling a jail full of super strong gamma mutates and gamma research is a ticking time bomb... and given bruce blew himself up with one he should know.

Thor.. is having a far chiller day of stalking Jane as she does her job since as an EMT she finds trouble and he dosen't exactly have a thor signal. And because she fascinates him, not getting how creepy that sounds. Jane finds it charming, partly because he's built like a norse god and partly because she gets this is less "I need to call shield a god is stocking me" and more "He's REALLY that clueless he dosen't get this is a felony".

Finally we have Hank and Jan on the hellicarrier, with Hank doing mods to the big house and arguing with Nick and Jane sorry she can't take maria hill's offer... only to realize hank had a point when maria won't answer a simple whose that.

It's then chaos breaks out.. as does every super villian at the 4 prisons with the Hellicararrier, which houses the big house, also going offline. Oh and Nick's house just blew up, but that happens every tuesday. You can just ignore that one, don't know why I brought it up.

As you'd guess most of our heroes are soon caught in the middle of it: Iron man flies back to the Vault, getting a heads up from Pepper that SHIELD"S in chaos, but finds all his foes have already kitted up and gang up on him including Crimson Dynamo, his russian equilveant and Blizzard, a villian i've always had a soft spot for who gets a truly awesome look here

Is his look baiscally just captain cold and mr freeze smushed together now? Sure? Does it look fucking dope? yes.

Thanks to SHIELD being stupid though, Iron Man isn't the only hero there and despite nearly blasting him earlier, Hawkeye helps for a sec before fleeing to clear his name. I like this setup for hawkeye as in the comic's hawkeye also started as a costumed criminal thanks to a misunderstanding, a nice way of meshing his mcu/ultimate self with the og. Hawkeye is also one of my faviorite superheroes, and something I can gush about later when Clint properly returns to the story. For now he's just awesome as always.

So Tony decides to escape by BLOWING THE FUCKER UP with his enemies inside

Yeah the civilians have apparently evacuated and the villians scene DO come back but you'd think after a few months after this Tony's go to wouldn't be "Cave a building on them and let god sort it out". Then again this IS Tony Stark we're talking about....

Bruce is IN one of the prisons and thus has a harder time, though there is one silver lining: Dr. Sampson.. is now fully on his side, having realized from the buildling falling apart that Bruce was right about this being a powder keg and promising to help. Granted it's a bit too late but still. The radiation abound has also given the good Doc super strength

Zzzax shows up. Zzzax is an energy being the hulk fights on and off, a big zappy man made of electricty who has a name that's as fun to say as it is to type. Naturally this brings out the other guy and Hulk fights him, winning becasue of course.

In the core of the cube and it's control rooms is the Leader. The Leader is Hulk's arch enemy and polar opposite: Hulk is pure rage and strength, the Leader is a calculated super genius with the durability of any other guy. And unlike the other villians in the other prisons.. Leader has no intention of leaving, to the bafflement of Absorbing Man and Abomination. Abomination is Hulk's other arch enemy, a KGB agent who got caught in a gamma ray blast when Hulk tried to kill the hulk with.. .the same thing that makes the hulk, being almost as strong but retaining his mind.

Leader sends the two to fight hulk as a distraction but once Hulk has them down he flees with Sampson.. and the Leader has his minons back off, explaning WHY he wants to stay in prison: he's going to change the world. And impliclity, what better lair for a super genius gamma mutate than a giant gamma based lab and former prison? It's almost like putting the lab next to the dangerous criminals was a bad idea waiting to blow up in their faces.

Before we move on Leader is played by horror legend Jeffery Combs, most famous for playing Herbet West in Re-Animator and it's sequels. Combs is a large ham supreme, a true craftsman of playing hammy bastards with no morals, and is perfect casting for the Leader, and SHOULD have played him in the mcu. Then again given how little the MCU has acctually DONE with the leader thanks to universal, it's a blessing in disguise. They can use him another way. Lots of mad scientests with no morals in marvel. Leader's story will be continued later, but I coudln't just.. pass by Jeffery Combs. I'm not made of stone.

As for Hank he gets the shit beat out of him by the people he was genuinely trying to help. Which is just.. sad... the problem wasn't hank's idea, a deluxe prison with creepy robots where he genuinely tries to reform people.. it's just most of the criminals were either people he brought in, resenting him automatically, or simply didn't WANT to change. Had he tried it on like the beetle or screaming mimi or someone who genuinely had the potetial to reform who knows what he could've done. Thankfully he's backed up by Jan and the fact he can become a really big man, a GIANT man if you will.

While this goes on Thor.. has a date. Jane gladly listens to his daddy issues, Baldur the Brave had visited earlier.. and Odin hasn't let up on the "come home thing". Jane breaks down "ancient asgardian things beyond your understnading" into what it is "You had a fight with your dad" and tries to convince him to go home and patch things up.. but then thor hears the explosions in the distance and goes to help.

So the bad news is a bunch of our heroes villians are free, with the only ones who aren't.. now running the prison. The WORSE news is that there's one more prison that didn't have a superhero on duty as Thor was out to lunch: the raft, a secret fourth blacksite prison hinted at earlier, containing the highest security cases... and one of them just woke up from a ten year nap, radaiting with power and rocking the helicarrier.

This yelling bearded man is Graviton, also played by Fred Tastiscore, whose hamming it up from here to eternity. He wants Fury dead and tha'ts where part 1 ends.. with him holdling fury hostage and sinking the hellicarrier.

Part 2 opens up with the origin of Graviton: Franklin Hall was a physcist for SHIELD before Fury tried to shut him down... for good reason as while Fury was trying to do this Franklin not only refused but his experiments blew up in his face. Then rather than help Hall.. fury locked him unconcious in the raft. Even the breakout didn't let him out it turned out ot be Baron Zemo. Baron Zemo is one of my faviorite super villians, a genius tactician and son of a nazi what cap fought. Naturally he tells franklin he's been down here for a while, then skedaddles. Unsuprisingly we'll be seeing the martial artist whose so skilled and cunning he's in the same jail as the guy who can make gravity his bitch.

Graviton is distracted by Iron man, who shows up to fight.. but tony gets a refresher in Gravity and gets bounced all the way to the endless cornfields of Kansas. Trust me having been in the car as someone's driven through them, that joke is not an exageration. Ther'es plenty of towns, intresting places.. but also large stretches of corn and nothing. So much corn and nothing.

While Tony calls for a backup suit, Thor tags in, while Hank chews Fury out, especially relevant since Fury refuses to tell them anything at first calling it classified... despite the giant exploding gravity man fighting a god above them.

As for Hulk... Hulk needs a snack. Prison hasn't done wonders fo rhis appittite so he stops at a diner, asking them to get help for Sampson... when Hulk has another guest: his brain buddy bruce who urges Hulk to help as he's the only one that can. Hulk makes the valid if misnthropic poitn that if no one's helped him, why should he.. but Bruce poitns out all the good he can do.. he can be more than the monster they see him as and he knows it. SO Hulk agrees to serve as backup.. provided Bruce make one concession: Hulk becomes the dominant personality and bruce comes out , as we find out later, only once a month.

As we wait to see the results of that deal, Thor gets plumeted to the bottom of the sea and Jan decides she isn't going to stand by anymore.. while Hank is like "NO YOU'LL GET HURT. LISTEN TO ME. " because he hasn't gotten Jan dosen't CARE she can get hurt, knows the risk, and is doing the right thing comma jackass. Jan.. actually puts on a decent showing as her stingers, small lasers , aren't affected by gravity. She is.. but Hank catches her having gotten his giant head out of his ass, while Thor regains Mjonr and tony joins back up. The avengers have.. mostly assemebled.

They still can't make much of a dent though: not only are they still very new at this tea-m thing, but Graviton is still strong enough to body a god: a scientest, a fashioin icon, and billionare mass attempted murderer aren't really going to turn the tide. Unluckily for Franky he decides to get braggy.. and gives too good an intrance cue NOT for someone to stomp in and ruin his day

Graviton: I'm stronger than all of you! I'm the strongest one there is! (BOOM) Hulk: You sure about that?

Hulk is here and easily beats the stuffing out of Graviton. We get a truly EPIC moment too as Graviton tries increasing the gravity on him which only works for seconds at a time as Hulk KEEPS, GETTING, BACK UP. With the others helping, and sometims just.. rushing him, Hulk is able to land the final blow on Graviton. My faviorite moment during this is Wasp lasering a container in half, confused someone's helping him... before Janet helpfully pipes in he's the bad guy. THe two will be incredibly close after this and given they both like hitting things and impulsive desicions, easy to see why.

Well almost final, He still has time to weakly rant before Wasp shuts him up.

Naturally SHIELD"S response to Hulk saving the day, the future avengers lives, and stopping an evil they created.. is to point all their guns at him. This time though Hulk has something he didn't have back in Vegas: Friends. Iron Man refuses to let SHIELD take him and everyone else gladly joins in, Jan naturally being the second most vocal behind tony.

Fury reluctantly gives in, and admits he could use the five's help: the various prison breaks have unleashed 74 other super villians and someone needs to round them up.

Hank.. turns him down, getting one last callout and a very damming one: they CREATED this mess: while Franklin made himself into a living god instead of trying to cure him or turn him into a force for good they locked him away an dhoped he'd never wake up, and new york nearly got leveled. I forgot to mention it somehow but motherfucker LEVITATED manhattan.

Tony does concede Fury has a point:.. not about joining SHIELD, they suck dirty ass in thunderstorms. But about working as a team:

Iron Man: One on one, we can each take down a villain or two, but 74... none of us can do it alone. Together we have a chance. What we did here, it can change things. The world needs us, but not as S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. As a team of our own. Together, we can avenge the wrongs caused by all these villains. Wasp: We can be Avengers. Hulk: Huh. Good name.

And thus.. a team is born. Hulk agrees to stay for now and everyone else, even pacifist hank seems excited. And even Fury, while not exastic, dosen't really poop on their parade. He is worried about one thing though: Who was behind this?

So yeah.. the first 7 episodes of EMH, the breakout two parter in paticular, are amazing. It sets up the world, fleshes out the cast, and gives us some great hooks going in: how will this team mesh? can hulk be accepted by the rest of the world? Who caused the Breakouts? What's loki's plan? How is leader going to "Change the world"? What did steve do to destroy Kang's timeline? All valid questions we'll answer another time but for now we've got 7 pretty excellent episode an da great start to one of the greatest avengers tales ever

Sometime Next Year: The avengers loose a member, gain an icon and a king and deal with their growing pains, ionic men, dougboys, ape men, living sounds, and a bunch of hulks. See you then and thanks for reading.

[transbeamrooikat]

Shyfade is finally here! I've been working on this one for a while, and I hope you guys like it! This is only pg. 1 and 2 of what I hope is going to be quite a long comic :3

Some spoiler free infodumping under the cut :D

AAAAAAAAAA shy is so sillay I love him <3333

Although - before i say anything else, I will clarify that the reason the clan is called "Successionclan" is because this was originally supposed to be a Lifegen run with Roman Roy from Succession, which kinda got outta hand (she's gonna show up later i prommy <33) and I've stuck to the name cause i find it funny :3

Also, warrior scerimonies are really weird when you think about it - the whole head kiss/shoulder lick thing just comes off as weird to me, because like - dude thats a kid?? also it very much gives off cult vibes. It was kinda hard to portray here, this is my first comic so I'm definitely still figuring things out, but the motion :(( had to scrap two panels that i really loved for this to make it flow better. Killing my darlings :(. But Shy's dicomfort with it was sooooo fun to explore!! It's almost theraputic? exploring my own religeous trauma through him lmao

I also have an irrational hatred for Sandstar (the brown cat) for some reason - me and Shy are united on that front lmao. Mskeing me a homophobic dog fr fr lmao.

Also shoutout to @chaotickitchenware ! If she didn't suggest I make this months ago it probably would never have happened, lmao, and she and @black-mass-things have massively helped me to make decisions with it, so big credits to them <3333

I ran out of space on the alt for the first page, hopefully its still legible tho 👍 let me know if there's anything I can improve on, cause I'm quite inexperienced with writing alts.

Clip Studio currently won't let me back into the actual file for the first page (I think it git corrupted ????) so I can't fix the spelling mistake that I just noticed in the fifth panel 😔😔😔 I also normally put progress vids here but i can't for the first page atm, I'll see if I can for the second page tho. (although I'll probably only add it later, I'm in a bit of a rush cause I gotta get ready to go somewhere and I dont have access to my puter at all rn 😔😔)

[dynared]

I wanted to like EarthSpark. I think it does some interesting things. I really like Twitch, they somehow got me to enjoy Good Guy Megatron and I love Bumblebee’s almost meta characterization. But it just felt like a very weak show which never explored its concepts with any depth. That and the finale was a garbage fire. Oof.

Though I think one of my biggest problems is the weird disdain for humanity as a whole. Where you’re either part of the absurdly kind and accepting main family or stupid and/or evil. Where even the slightest discomfort with the people who dragged humans into a massive war they had no business with makes you despicable while the robots deserve to be treated well no matter how awful they are. I get it’s meant to be a bigotry allegory, but if I’m honest I just think it’s a really bad one. I’m not even a person who generally likes the human characters in Transformers stories, bar a few exceptions, but it really grinds my gears.

I also just get the really weird feeling from it that the writers aren’t comfortable writing for kids. So everything just feels dumbed down to an at times condescending level and feels weirdly afraid of interpersonal conflict beyond the first batch of episodes. Though I could be exaggerating. I’m kind of glad it got a second season since I think it can improve but I somehow doubt it will last long.

I don't want to hate Earthspark, or come off as a contrarian just because I like super robot stuff and don't like IDW stuff. I mean, there are things to like in Earthspark, but as I've discussed with a friend of mine, Earthspark feels like it's a bunch of characters in search of a plot. For better or for worse, I associated Twitch with Suletta Mercury because the two had that similar wide-eyed innocent energy and red motif, which endeared me to her almost immediately. I can take or leave Megatron as a more sorrowful/heroic figure, but at least he felt like he was genuine about wanting the kids to avoid the mistakes he made.

The problem is as characters, they don't really do anything. GHOST and Mandroid, as much as I adore Diedrich Bader's usually (he is the guy you want when you want a more Silver Age Batman) were not interesting villains because they weren't allowed to really do much besides be a blunt bigotry allegory, while at the same time, not really fitting the allegory. Readers of the recent Skybound comics know the kind of damage out-of-control Decepticons can pull, and humans aren't exactly being unreasonable in not wanting to deal with giant killer robots whom Earth's military has no reliable way of stopping, besides the goodwill of other giant killer robots, and a population that feels powerless. Considering Skybound has been implying such a situation horrifies the government into founding Codename: GI Joe specifically to combat the Decepticons, people are well within their rights to be scared. It's not a good allegory because most oppressed people don't have built-in chainguns!

The IDW era of Transformers stories, I presume as a reaction to the Michael Bay movies and the Unicron trilogy, did have a significant and notable hatred of the human characters. I mean, Cyberverse has a human in one scene. One. I think it's just using that framework to make your bigotry allegory, except the allegory doesn't work, and people have resoundingly rejected shows like Cyberverse.

As for your last point, I don't know if it's a case of the writers not understanding how to write to a children/family audience (if there's one thing kids hate, anyone hates, it's being spoken down to) or if they're just that adamant about hammering the life lessons to the detriment of everything else, hence the low stakes, flat villains, and blunt allegories.

I feel like most of my negative comparisons ultimately are based on the fact that the Skybound comics have proven that there's a better way to do this since those comics seem to be the first time since Animated that people writing Transformers stories get why people like mecha/super robot stories. And while I have no idea how the second season will turn out, I'm admittedly not expecting them to have learned their lesson. Then again, with the rumors that they want to get the live-action TV show going again, I imagine we're going to be in this weird sort of "leftover IDW" style writing malaise for a while since it will likely be years before enough Skybound comics are ready for a proper adaptation.